In a major milestone for conservation finance, a 62,000-acre easement project in South Carolina is offering a new model for aligning environmental goals with long-term economic returns. Structured over four separate easements, the Pee Dee Basin Initiative has become the largest conservation transaction ever facilitated by a state agency in South Carolina—without sidelining the land’s revenue potential.
Led by Resource Management Service (RMS), a global timberland investment manager, the project threads institutional capital through environmental safeguards while maintaining productive forestry operations. The conserved land, which stretches 20 miles across the Pee Dee, Santee, and Black Rivers, remains under active forest management and certified to both Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards.
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