Legacy Farms, 367 acres, Hampton County
In rural Hampton County near the headwaters of the Coosawhatchie River by Lake Warren State Park, lie 367 acres of fields, forests and wetlands known as Legacy Farms. Migratory songbirds flock here in the spring. Quail nest in Legacy’s longleaf pine stands. The wetlands are alive all year long with the waterfowl, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals that color SC’s field guides.
Legacy Farms is a thriving natural environment, and because Jimmie and April Polk placed it under conservation easement with Lowcountry Land Trust in July 2019, it always will be. Ask April Anderson Polk about why a conservation easement was the right thing to do, and she’ll tell you about her father, William Anderson, Jr. who instilled in her “the importance of giving back to the land more than we take from it.”
Funding for the easement came from the South Carolina Conservation Bank, which selected this project because, by protecting Legacy Farms, the state-owned lands next door gained an additional layer of protection too. That’s critical, because SC’s natural environments pay no heed to legal property boundaries. Connecting one protected piece of land to another, as the Polks did here, is often the only way to ensure the long-term health of the places that contribute so much to our well being, whether because they produce our food, keep our air and water clean, or give us access to the open space we love.
“That’s quite a legacy,” says Ashley Demosthenes, LLT’s President and CEO. “We’re grateful to be a part of the Polk’s conservation vision for their family property.
