He says a forest could be defined as a place where there are enough trees that are big enough so that not much sunlight hits the ground. If you then take away some of those trees, say about half of them, you have a woodland. If you take away even more trees, so there is more open space, you have a savanna. Finally, if you take away almost all the trees, you have a prairie. “There are still small examples — postage stamps really — of this still around,” said Stowe. “Rock Hill Blackjacks Heritage Preserve, near Rock Hill, protects a remnant of Carolina prairie. One of the main differences you see on the landscape now, compared to Catesby’s time, is fire suppression. Over the last few thousand years, much of South Carolina burned more years than not. Fire didn’t burn every year on each individual tract, but many large areas, especially in the longleaf pinelands of the Sandhills and Coastal Plain, did burn almost every year. These longleaf firelands rarely went more than two or three years without a fire.” Before people arrived in the Southeast, fires were caused by lightning. After that, Native Americans, with great care and wisdom, used fire on the land for dozens of reasons — including to safeguard their villages from wildfires, clear land for agriculture, enhance berry production, clear autumn leaves to make chestnuts and acorns easier to harvest, drive animals or make good hunting areas, and to kill off ticks and chiggers, according to Stowe. As other cultures arrived in the new world, fire continued to be implemented as a land management tool. “They kept up that tradition of using fire to mold the landscape,” Stowe said. “Today we are working to restore that multicultural woods-burning heritage for its public safety, economic, ecological and other benefits. Stowe recalled the wise words of forestry expert Larry Landers: “Taking fire out of the longleaf pine forest is like taking rain out of the rain forest.” Underscoring this fact, Stowe added that there were once more than ninety million acres of longleaf pines across the Southeast from Virginia to Texas, but by the mid1990s there were only about three million 16 South Carolina Wildlife
Photos by Janice Sauls
Photos by Michael Foster