Why the Pee Dee wetlands matter (and what you can do about it)

Drive any back road through Darlington or Georgetown county and you will pass cypress-shadowed sloughs, blackwater channels, and marshy lowlands that people in this region have hunted and fished around for generations. Most of it looks like nothing from a car window. A wetland doing its job rarely announces itself, and the people who have spent time on these waters for decades tend to take that quiet for granted. They should not have to worry about whether it will still be there in twenty years.

What wetlands actually do

A single acre of healthy wetland can absorb over a million gallons of floodwater. If you have watched the Pee Dee crest after a hard rain, you already understand why that matters for the farms and houses downstream. Wetlands also filter runoff before it reaches drinking water supplies, reduce erosion along riverbanks, and hold carbon in the soil.

Beyond flood control, the blackwater cypress swamps here support wood ducks, great blue herons, otters, and dozens of native fish species. Migratory birds follow the Atlantic Flyway through this region each spring and fall, resting in these marshes on their way north and south. These are the birds and fish that South Carolinians hunt and watch from the banks of the Waccamaw and Great Pee Dee. They depend on these places staying wet and intact.

What has been lost

Wetland loss across the American Southeast accelerated through most of the 20th century as farmland expanded and development filled low-lying ground. South Carolina has lost more than a third of its original wetland acreage since European settlement. The Pee Dee watershed, with its mix of blackwater rivers, flatwood ponds, and tidal marshes, holds some of the most biologically important remaining wetland habitat in the Carolinas. That is not a permanent condition. Federal protections have slowed the losses, but development pressure along the South Carolina coast keeps pushing inland. Landowners with inherited wetland property face real decisions about what to do with it, and those decisions do not always go in favor of conservation.

When a wetland parcel transfers to a developer without any legal protection, it is usually gone for good. A conservation easement or a land donation to Pee Dee Land Trust can prevent that.

What Pee Dee Land Trust has done

PDLT has permanently protected thousands of acres across nine counties, from Chesterfield and Marlboro in the north through Horry and Georgetown counties to the coast. Witherspoon Island, a 3,708-acre tract in the watershed, is one of the largest privately conserved tracts in the region. It protects bottomland hardwoods, wetlands, and river frontage that would otherwise face development pressure with no legal barrier in place.

Every conservation easement PDLT holds is a permanent legal commitment. The land stays in private hands, but development rights are gone. Whoever eventually inherits the property inherits open space, not a subdivision.

How you can get involved

You do not need to own land to support conservation work in the Pee Dee.

Membership starts at $35 a year and funds ongoing stewardship, monitoring, and community programs. That money stays in the nine-county service area.

PDLT also organizes paddle trips on the Great Pee Dee throughout the year. Getting on the water with people who care about it tends to make the stakes feel more concrete than any fact sheet.

The Annual Oyster Roast and the Bountiful Brunch are the organization’s two signature events, and both fund land protection work. If you have not been to either, this fall is a good place to start.

If you know a landowner in the Pee Dee who is thinking about their estate, point them toward PDLT. A conservation easement can reduce estate tax burden and keep the land from being divided after they are gone.

Ready to help protect this land?

Visit peedeelandtrust.org or call 843-667-9093 to ask about membership, upcoming events, or starting a conservation easement conversation.