Issue 5

What Can Experimental Forests Teach Us About Clean Water?

In 1933, the U.S. Government acquired land in Berkeley County, near Charleston, SC, to form the Francis Marion National Forest. In 1937, 6,100 acres of the Francis Marion National Forest were allocated as the Santee Experimental Forest to support research needed to sustain and manage Coastal Plain forests.

The Santee Experimental Forest includes parts of the oldest colonized land in the United States. King Charles II granted the land to Thomas Colleton in 1683, and eventually it became incorporated into the Limerick Plantation in 1707. During that time, the upland was cleared and used to raise livestock and produce naval stores (tar, pitch, turpentine, pine oil, rosin, and terpenes extracted from pine), while rice and indigo were cultivated in the bottomlands. Between 1897 and 1929, the area was heavily logged.

Early research on the Santee focused on thinning and fire management in loblolly pine stands. Forest hydrology and silviculture (forest management activity, including timber harvesting, forest regeneration, and fertilization) were added to the research program over the years. The large experimental forest contains all of the major forest types; hence research findings are applicable to most of the southeastern coastal areas. (...continued...)