Conservation & advocacy wins of 2024

It's been a great year for conservation in the Upstate! As 2024 comes to a close, we're pausing to celebrate the many conservation and advocacy successes this year has brought.

Here's a look at just a few highlights of our work this year — made possible by your generous support...

Our Land Conservation team has protected more than 3,300 acres since this time last year through conservation easements and partner projects like: 

• Hereford Hill Farm, a 101-acre working family-owned ranch in Southern Greenville County,
• Keowee Ridge, a 67-acre organic hobby farm that offers free-range eggs, apples, honey, and goat byproducts on a peninsula on Lake Keowee in Pickens County,
• White Tract Addition, a 512-acre expansion to protected properties along the Blue Ridge Escarpment along the Stateline in Northern Greenville County, and others.

Our Clean Water team successfully completed a Watershed-Based Plan for the Twelvemile Creek Watershed, which encompasses the eastern portion of Pickens County extending southwest to Lake Hartwell, and have started another for the Rocky River Watershed, which contains sections of both Anderson and Abbeville Counties.

Our Clean Water team also worked closely with The Tyger River Foundation and other partners to finalize a master plan for The Tyger River Recreation Region, a 20-mile recreation and eco-tourism corridor in Spartanburg County.

Together with Clean Water, our Land Planning & Policy team celebrated the results of more than a decade of advocacy when Greenville County adopted an ordinance requiring least a 50' wide riparian buffer for new development along all Waters-of-the-State in unincorporated areas. Pickens County also adopted similar requirements.

Alongside community partners, our Land Planning & Policy team also worked to successfully galvanize Greenville residents and advocates to encourage County Council to adopt the Unified Development Ordinance, another impactful policy that was years in the making. 

Additionally, dozens of Upstate residents participated in advocacy trainings to increase their knowledge and efficacy as advocates for land use policies that support smarter growth.

Our Energy & State Policy team worked with partners at the Statehouse to pass several important bills, including the Working Agricultural Lands Preservation Act, Endangered Species Data Protection Act, Trails Tax Credit Bill, and funding for the South Carolina Conservation Bank. 

We launched the Generations Campaign, an initiative to fund our work to protect the region’s critical lands, waters, and unique character for the years to come. Because of your support, we are closing in on our goal to secure $7 million to meet the challenges our region is experiencing, amplify our impact, and exponentially grow protections for the Upstate’s lands and waters in the years ahead.

Lastly, this year the Saluda Grade Trails Conservancy — which includes Upstate Forever, Conserving Carolina, and PAL: Play. Advocate. Live Well — officially entered into a contract to purchase the Saluda Grade rail line and corridor for a proposed rail trail running approximately 31 miles from Upstate South Carolina to Western North Carolina.

This is just a snapshot of the work our team was able to accomplish this year — and none of it would have been possible without the support of generous folks like you.

If you would like to help us carry this momentum in to 2025 and beyond, please consider supporting our work by year-end.

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