Currently, the project area has a high degree of landscape integrity, with approximately 82% forest cover, good connectivity and a range of management regimes that has sustained biodiversity. However, the projected trends of several threats over the next 20 to 30 years create a need for urgent action in order to safeguard this landscape. Based on quantitative studies and local knowledge, the most urgent threats to this area are:

- Incompatible urban development, including second-home and resort development
- Incompatible forestry practices, complicated by a declining market for forest products and global changes in the forestry industry
- Increasing constraints on landowners’ use of fire, leading to incompatible fire regimes
- Altered hydrology in the project area’s three brownwater rivers due to upstream dams
- Climate change

The first two threats, incompatible urban development and incompatible forestry practices, are the most severe and pervasive in the project area. Stabilizing the forested landscape in the face of these threats is critical if the other threats are to be addressed.

Incompatible Urban Development. Incompatible urban development leads to habitat loss and habitat fragmentation. Three centers of urban growth are impacting the Lowcountry Forest Conservation Project area: Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head Island/Beaufort.

South Carolina’s population is projected to grow by 1 million people within 15 to 20 years, a 25% increase. According to researchers at Clemson University, 50% of this growth is projected in the six coastal counties, directly impacting the project area. Currently, South Carolina has a very high ratio of urban expansion to population growth. The state ranks 40th in land area in the US, but in the mid-1990’s its rate of conversion of farm and forestlands to urban uses ranked 10th: 73,000+ acres per years (USDA, 2000). Charleston is the largest urban area adjoining the Lowcountry Forest Project area, and from 1973 to 1994 its urban area expanded from 45,000 acres to 160,000 acres, a 250% increase (Clemson University, 1999). Predicted growth through 2030 is for the Charleston urban area to reach 555,520 acres, which would impact several key regions in the project area if this trend is not changed (ibid., 1999).

Two other centers of urban growth are impacting the project area. Myrtle Beach, north of the project boundary, is a resort, second-home and retirement community that is rapidly expanding west and south into the project area. The Hilton Head Island/Beaufort area is also expanding into the project area. Beaufort County had a 40% rate of population growth from 1990 to 2000, the fastest percentage rate in South Carolina.

Incompatible Forestry Practices. The natural forest types of South Carolina’s coastal plain are projected to decline 35%, or 1.9 million acres from 5.5 million acres in 1995 to 3.6 million acres in 2040 (Southern Environmental Law Center, 2002; citing Wear and Greis, 2001). Both urban development and forestry practices are causing this trend. Pine plantations on the coastal plain of South Carolina are projected to increase 50% from 1.8 million acres in 1995 to 2.7 million acres in 2040 due to conversion of natural forests and replanting of farmland (ibid., 2002). Replacement of natural forests by pine plantations reduces biological diversity by drastically reducing the overall number of species and greatly simplifying the forest community.

Conversions of natural forests are complicated by a rapidly changing market for forest products, driven by global changes in supply, consolidation among industrial forest corporations, and consumer pressures for more sustainably managed wood supplies (Block and Sample, 2001). The market price for pulp is currently very low. This forces landowners in the project area who had counted on pulp sales to consider alternative uses for their land, including urban development. The two largest corporate landowners in the project area, MeadWestvaco and International Paper, are both offering unprecedented acres for sale as the industry consolidates. We anticipate a very dynamic situation for forest landowners over the next decade. The partners are convinced that a viable forest products industry with reasonable returns to landowners is a key success factor. The long-term goal is to achieve a balance that sustains biological diversity while providing a sufficient economic return to landowners that allows the land to remain as forest.

Inappropriate Fire Regimes. The numbers of plant species found in the fire-dependent communities of the southeastern Coastal Plain are among the highest in North America, including a high number of imperiled species of plants and animals. Fire maintains these habitats, and many plants and animals are dependent on periodic fires for their reproduction. Fire suppression has significantly impacted these natural communities leading to build-up of dead wood and debris and increasing the risks of catastrophic wildfires. Estimates based on data from the SC Forestry Commission indicate that as much as 200,000 acres are burned annually in the project area, but the use of these data is limited and quantitative figures are not available.

Projections of future trends in land use, liability, smoke regulations and air quality regulations indicate that landowners will be increasingly constrained in their use of fire. The FMNF, for example, is in the same airshed as the Charleston metropolitan area. Urban areas and road networks continue to expand, increasing the conflicts about fire at the “urban-wildlands interface.” Urban populations are less tolerant of smoke and do not understand the benefits of fire, seeing only the risks. On intensively managed forest plantations, the trend is to suppress fires, using herbicides instead to control undergrowth and hardwoods (Yin and Sedjo, 2001). In the absence of concerted effort, the use of fire will decline in the project area, leading to long-term declines in biological diversity.

Altered Hydrology. Upstream dams have altered the hydrology on the Savannah, Santee and Pee Dee Rivers (The Nature Conservancy, unpublished data). This, in turn, has well-documented impacts on the reproduction and viability of cypress/tupelo and bottomland hardwood forests. The severity and nature of hydrologic alterations varies among the three rivers, but in all cases the seasonal and annual variation in river flows has been highly altered, typically to the detriment of the reproductive cycle of wetland tree species. In the Santee River, much of the water has been diverted to the Cooper River, drying down the floodplain and allowing saltwater to move upstream in the delta. In the Savannah River, dredging for navigation has cut off flows to parts of the floodplain and allowed saltwater to intrude into formerly freshwater habitats.

Climate Change. Climate change is projected to cause measurable sea-level rise and warming temperatures in the project area over the next 50 to 100 years. Rising sea level will shift saltwater marshes inland at the expense of cypress/tupelo and bottomland hardwood forests. In addition, the same floodplain forests will move upward along elevation gradients. The large project area should accommodate these changes. Warming temperatures will shift the ranges of plants and animals northward in the region, with potentially major shifts in forest composition.

Several of these threats are interactive. Urban expansion reduces the use of fire on adjoining forestlands. Increasingly intensive management of pine plantations discourages the use of fire in many cases. Altered hydrology has reduced inundation of floodplain forests, creating more favorable conditions for conversion to pine plantations.

The project partners believe that despite the seriousness, the threats are manageable. Success factors include the degree of intactness of the area, the existing framework of conservation lands, conservation minded landowners and long-standing functional partnerships.