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.

One of the driving forces of success of the ACE Basin initiative – a thriving landscape of protected land totaling over 320,000 acres between the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto (ACE) Rivers – is that it started with just a few landowners and grew with passion, persistence and partnership. Neighbor to neighbor, landowner to landowner, state to federal agency, public park to private land trust for 36 years and counting.

Since 2002, Beaufort County voters have voted to tax themselves to protect land. First was the Rural and Critical Land Preservation Program; this property tax collection was the first local tax collected for land protection and served as an early model for others in the state. Seven other counties in SC have followed Beaufort’s lead and implemented a local land protection fund! In 2022, Beaufort continued to lead and created the Green Space Program, which is active today.

There are places in Beaufort County that stop you in your tracks. All you have to do is drive by to be reminded of how lucky we are to live here. Former Nature Conservancy director John Sawhill once said, “Our society will be defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy.” That truth lives all around us.

For more than fifty years, the Mark family has called their land on Lady’s Island home. As children, they rode bikes down quiet dirt roads, rode freely on horseback, and watched stars fill a dark night sky. Over time those roads grew busier, forests gave way to subdivisions, and the glow of new development slowly crept closer to the edges of their family home.

When a landowner protects their property with a conservation easement many assume the hard work is done. In truth, that’s when our responsibility truly begins.