2 weeks Ago
FLORENCE — Maria Whitehead said there was something special about being raised in the Back Swamp Community outside of Florence. A childhood in Back Swamp meant growing up on her family’s 200-year-old farm, running through grassy fields, swimming in rivers and having pets like snakes, frogs and great horned owls. The land in Back Swamp was Whitehead’s introduction to the beauty of land and the sense of place it gives a person.
It was there that she’d ride on a zipline crafted by her mother who encouraged time outdoors, and there where she and her three brothers would fall in love with the land of the Pee Dee. What people need most to cultivate that love and passion for the land, Whitehead said, is access to it. Protecting land that becomes accessible to communities and to the public is at the heart of what Whitehead does in her role as senior vice president and director of land for the southeast at Open Space Institute.
Whitehead is a recipient of the 2024 Honorable Cornelius Amory Pugsley Medal from the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration, the most prestigious award for contributions to the development of public parks and conservation. In her eight years with the Open Space Institute, Whitehead has helped protect more than 75,000 acres not just in South Carolina but all across the Southeast. Her reach has spanned from the Santee Delta to Myrtle Beach to Twiggs and Bibbs counties in central Georgia .
Whitehead championed the effort to create South Carolina’s first state park in nearly 20 years with the Open Space Institute’s Black River State Park and Black River Water Trail and Park Network, which spans 70 miles. She recently assisted in a project that will conserve 62,000 more acres across South Carolina — an area more than three times the size of Hilton Head Island and the state’s largest conservation effort to date. In total, Whitehead has fought to conserve nearly 140,000 acres in completed and continuing projects.
That's nearly the size of the city of Chicago. Whitehead, who is also an ornithologist, discovered a passion for birds while working with The School for Field Studies in Queensland, Australia after graduating from Davidson College. SC land 3 times the size of Hilton Head to be protected in largest conservation easement project She went on to receive her master’s from the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and Environmental Conservation and her doctorate from Clemson University’s Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation.
Many researchers in her field pursue the academia path. While Whitehead is a professor at Clemson and has taught at Furman University, The Citadel and the College of Charleston, she knew she also wanted to do applied conservation work. While working as the director of research at the Center for Birds of Prey in Awendaw, Whitehead noticed a new opportunity to expand her work to land conservation — a position at the Nature Conservancy of South Carolina that was centered on land north of the Santee River.
It felt like the perfect way to conserve the land that sparked her deep, unwavering passion for environmental protection. It ultimately launched her into her position at the Open Space Institute where she has made strides regionwide. “It included Florence County,” Whitehead said.
“It included the place where I was from.” From there, Whitehead’s work would span far beyond the Back Swamp community and would become a guiding force in making land accessible to all. When Paul McCormack started his job as director of state parks for the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism in 2018, a new state park had not been established since 2006.
That was until Whitehead showed up with a proposal for the Black River State Park. “Immediately, her passion for the project came through, and her vision for the significance of it as a new state park was obvious, and she was correct and spot on,” McCormack said. “She immediately inspired me to take the first steps.
” He ended up nominating Whitehead for the award not just for this passion but also for her intention when it comes to including as many people as possible. What sets Whitehead apart is her insistence on bringing as many voices to the table as possible, McCormack said. “She looks for how to get more people around the table, rather than how to exclude people,” McCormack said.
“Maria is so conscientious about not just accepting people who want to be involved, but looking for people who don't know enough about it to be involved, but should be involved, and getting them inspired about it.” Whitehead said striving for this inclusivity is part of what makes her so passionate about her work. At a time when Americans are divided, land conservation can be a unifying force that protects and connects people.
Conservation groups protect thousands of acres in Santee Delta as new threats loom Whitehead and the Open Space Institute worked with The South Carolina Conservation Bank, the Catawba Nation and other partners to protect 600 acres of property known as the “Nisbet Tract,” located in the heart of the Catawba Nation’s ancestral lands. The new state park focuses on ensuring the protection of the Catawba Nation’s resources and celebrating the history of the land that has become an integral part of the Catawba Nation’s identity. “We're protecting natural communities and human communities,” she said.
“We're protecting ourselves here — protecting our species, too when we protect land.” Whitehead will be quick to tell you that she feels “self-conscious” about receiving the most prestigious award in land conservation because it feels like her accomplishments are part of a collective effort. “My success is the success of the larger conservation community, and we are so fortunate to have such a collaborative approach in South Carolina,” Whitehead said.
Black River State Park information session to update residents on progress After working to protect countless acres of land in the Pee Dee, South Carolina and the entire southeastern region, Whitehead has one accomplishment in her life that rises above all the rest — raising her three daughters. Maria Whitehead, a land conservationist from the Back Swamp community outside of Florence, calls her three daughters her greatest accomplishment. Whitehead and her husband Ryan Olson — who also works in conservation — live in Brevard, North Carolina, and have raised their daughters in the outdoors, similar to the way she was raised in the Back Swamp community.
Between traveling the world, caring for pet snakes and turtles, birding, and using nature as artistic inspiration, she has seen the impact that land and wildlife has had on her children. “They're all just incredible adventurers, self-possessed and confident,” she said. “I think that's some of the gifts of being an outdoor kid.
” For Whitehead, it all comes back to a love for the land and having access to it. Access to land means access to culture, identity, history and all the beauty that comes with spending time in nature. In her acceptance speech for the award at the 2024 National Recreation and Park Association annual conference in Atlanta, Whitehead recalled a quote from novelist and environmental activist Wendell Berry to demonstrate the joy of connecting friends and partners to natural spaces they have yet to discover.
“Nobody can discover the world for somebody else,” she said, quoting Berry. “Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond.”.
