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ONE The Lowcountry Environment— Past and Present The South Carolina lowcountry is hard to leave and even harder to define. It comprises an irregularly shaped area stretching approximately one hundred fifty miles along the Atlantic coast from Myrtle Beach southwestward to Hilton Head Island and extending some fifty miles inland. The term lowcountry derived from comments made by the first Europeans to visit the region in the seventeenth century . As one of the early British colonists wrote, the Carolina coastal area is “soe plaine & Levyll that it may be compared to a Bowling all[e]y.” For the purposes of this study the lowcountry region includes nine “saltwater” counties, moving from north to south: Horry, Georgetown, Williamsburg, Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester, Beaufort, Jasper, and Colleton. These counties are situated from the highly developed Myrtle Beach area in the north down to the Savannah River and the Georgia border.1 Along the Coast The lowcountry is one of the world’s most complex coastal ecotones (an area of great biological diversity where two or more distinct habitats adjoin). It hosts six different ecosystems. The mainland features upland forests and mossy swamps (wetlands with more trees than marshes). Freshwater rivers and streams comprise a third ecosystem. A fourth ecosystem consists of hundreds of mostly small barrier islands and mainland coastal fringe, or “strand.” Finally, two coastal wetland ecosystems include the shallow marshes near the seashore and the deeper estuaries lying between the marshes and the barrier islands, where the mouths of freshwater rivers intermingle with the saltwater from oceanic tides.2 Moving southwest along the coast from Murrells Inlet, salt marshes and barrier islands dominate the landscape. The channel running between South and North Islands creates Winyah Bay, home to the port city of Georgetown. The coastline between Georgetown and the greater Charleston area hosts the Francis Marion National Forest as well as Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge. These large preserved areas are protected by numerous barrier islands (named such because they shield the mainland from storm damage), most of which are owned and managed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS). The Lowcountry Environment—Past and Present 17 Nestled between the Francis Marion National Forest and Cape Romain lies the village of McClellanville, historically the home of predominantly African American fishers and shrimpers who plied the waters of Bulls Bay immediately south of the community. Bulls and Capers Islands (within Cape Romain) are among the southernmost of the barrier islands in the lowcountry that remain undeveloped. Islands farther south—Dewees, Isle of Palms, Sullivan’s, Morris, Folly, Kiawah, Seabrook, and Edisto—help create the channels forming Charleston’s harbor. Several of the region’s thirty-five barrier islands are intensively developed and represent some of the most valuable real estate in the nation. Charleston remains the vibrant hub of lowcountry urban life, as it has been since the eighteenth century. By far the most populous city on the coast, it is has long been a tourist mecca renowned for its history, culture, and grace, as well as a self-confident charm and, at times, a defiant insularity. It has also been a bustling port, long dependent upon the crops and commerce of the inland counties and beyond.3 The final segment of South Carolina coast from Charleston southwest to the mouth of the Savannah River is sometimes called the “true” lowcountry because it is so wet. Much of the land in Beaufort and Jasper Counties is covered in water that supports abundant marshes and forested wetlands. Hilton Head Island is the largest and most intensively developed island in the southern area of the lowcountry . Since the 1960s it has been a primary tourist destination, blessed with impressive beaches and numerous golf courses.4 The lowcountry has always been defined by its stunningly lovely physical landscape. It has a distinctive look and feel, almost Old Testament–like in its intensities. From its northern boundary at Little River Inlet southwest to the Savannah River, the region attracts large numbers of new residents and millions of tourists eager to enjoy its water-based activities, mild climate, prolific beaches, scenic vistas, historic sites, and forested landscapes. Yet for all of its natural beauty and alluring amenities, the lowcountry has also harbored an abundance of natural hazards: sweltering heat and humidity, malarial mosquitoes, and devastating hurricanes. Such hazards help make the lowcountry such a dynamic and even dangerously wild place. It is unpredictable: always changing, always in motion, always becoming. Every day, the tides reshape the...

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