From a Threatened Crossroads to a New State Forest

Some conservation wins feel like the relief of finding the puzzle piece you’ve been searching for. Pocotaligo Station is one of those wins.

This land sits where three counties (Beaufort, Hampton, Jasper) and two rivers (Tulifinny & Pocotaligo) meet. With long stretches along a major freight rail line and Interstate 95 it’s a place that’s been targeted for industrial development for years. Yet it’s also a landscape of quiet beauty: upland forests, vast wetlands, and ponds that feed into the Port Royal Sound.

Provided by Open Space Institute

What could have been lost under concrete

Beneath the trees, history is woven into the ground itself. Revolutionary War earthworks still rest in the woods and the first blood of the 1715 Yemassee War is believed to have been shed on or near this land that was long inhabited by the Yemassee people.

These stories could have disappeared under concrete.

Instead, this fall the Open Space Institute (OSI) and Open Land Trust (OLT) protected 1,700 of these critical acres, the first phase of a larger 3,000-acre effort that will eventually become a new state forest.

And you helped make it possible. Your support provides us with the foundation to work with crucial partners like the South Carolina Conservation Bank, Beaufort County Greenspace Program, the South Carolina Forestry Commission, and Chilton Land and Timber Company that made this project a reality. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has also pledged funding for future phases.

What makes this project powerful is momentum.

It builds on more than 12,000 nearby acres already conserved by OSI, The Nature Conservancy, OLT, and state partners – creating a sweeping greenbelt from the Ashepoo, Combahee, Edisto (ACE) Basin toward the Savannah River.

Piece by piece, we’re stitching together a “nature bridge” that will protect clean water, wildlife, and the sense of place that is so incredibly unique to the southern Lowcountry.