By Dr. Tom Mullikin and Sen. Tom Davis
For years, Americans have been sold a false narrative: you can only protect the environment or grow the economy – but not both. South Carolina is debunking this myth, demonstrating the best examples across the State where both the environment and the economy can thrive.
In a moment when the nation is hungry for a workable model, our state offers a solution rooted in practical market-based outcomes: rapid growth, major job creation, and measurable progress on reducing human-caused environmental strain. South Carolina isn’t “posturing.” We’re building a track record – and it’s worth saying plainly: The Palmetto State is helping rewrite the national story about what prosperity can look like.
Growth without apology – because people are voting with their feet.
Start with the basic fact: South Carolina is growing fast, especially by domestic migration. Between July 2023 and July 2024, South Carolina’s population grew 1.7% (about 91,000 additional residents). That pace puts us among the country’s fastest-growing states, and it reflects what families and businesses are signaling: South Carolina is a place they believe can deliver opportunity.
But growth alone isn’t leadership. Leadership is whether growth is managed well across generations – whether it strengthens communities without sacrificing the land, water, air, and coast that make South Carolina home.
The “decoupling” reality: economies can grow while emissions fall. The old narrative assumes environmental protection is a brake pedal. South Carolina has demonstrated otherwise.
In fact, South Carolina now ranks among national – and even global – leaders in reducing air emissions while continuing to rapidly grow our economy and population. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, South Carolina reduced its anthropogenic emissions by 19.2 percent between 2010 and 2022, a rate that significantly outpaces and almost triples California’s 7.6 percent reduction over the same period. Reductions occurred not through additional onerous regulations but rather through innovation and application. When placed in an international context, South Carolina’s rate of emissions reduction rivals – or exceeds – that of many industrialized nations over comparable timeframes, demonstrating that meaningful emissions declines are achievable without sacrificing economic competitiveness. This performance challenges the conventional narrative that aggressive protection of our natural resources requires aggressive regulation or economic contraction, and instead positions South Carolina as a practical, results-driven model for protection of natural resources rooted in market efficiency, conservation, and smart growth. In South Carolina we can push it further with the same no-drama, results-first approach that has powered our economic renaissance. Our approach has been operational – not aspirational – as we regain our footing on the national and international stage.
South Carolina’s economy has shown strong momentum in recent quarters. Federal data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows South Carolina had the highest real growth domestic product growth rate among states in the first quarter of 2025 (1.7% annual rate) at a time when national growth actually contracted. State labor market analysis also noted solid growth in the second quarter of 2025, outpacing several regional peers.
That matters because it reframes the policy debate: Environmental performance isn’t something you do after prosperity arrives. It can be part of what creates prosperity – by attracting investment, modernizing infrastructure, lowering risk, and protecting the natural assets that underpin tourism, outdoor recreation, farming, forestry, and coastal economies. Our outdoor heritage and traditions can not only persevere as the economy grows – they can thrive.
Conservation is economic development – when it’s done at scale. South Carolina has a powerful example of what “both/and” looks like: land conservation that protects resources and strengthens the state. We have strong case studies that demonstrate that it is much less expensive to conserve than rebuild after hurricanes and extreme weather.
In South Carolina, a state of approximately 20 million acres, we have nearly 3.5 million acres under some form of conservation. More than 419,000 acres have been protected across hundreds of projects, with state conservation grants awarded and an appraised land value protected in the billions. That’s not symbolism – that’s real acreage, real habitat, real flood resilience, real water protection, and real quality-of-life value for growing communities.
And South Carolina is positioned to add to that momentum through major resilience and conservation investments now being organized through statewide collaboration. Funding pathways include significant conservation investments aimed at protecting land to sustain natural resources, provide places for people to hunt and fish and increase flood resilience.
In South Carolina, we have a constitutional mandate to protect our natural resources.
Article XII Section 1 expressly provides that the “health, welfare, and safety of the lives and property of the people of this State and the conservation of its natural resources are matters of public concern.”
Under Governor Henry McMaster’s leadership, South Carolina has elevated conservation as a core component of economic and environmental strategy, advancing large-scale land protection, resilience planning, and historic investments in natural systems. In recent years, Governor McMaster has championed state and partner efforts that together have secured more than 229,000 acres of historic and environmentally significant landscapes. Recently, he announced the largest conservation easement in state history protecting over 62,000 acres along the Pee Dee, Santee, and Black Rivers.
This initiative, backed by state agencies and federal funding, preserves working forests that support South Carolina’s roughly $23-billion forest industry while also safeguarding habitat, wildlife migratory corridors, water quality, and natural flood buffers that absorb stormwater and reduce downstream risks.
South Carolina has become one of the most active states in the Southeast in privately led land conservation, with a rapidly growing conservation-easement footprint and partnerships across public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Together, these efforts protect over 3.2 million acres – resulting in the protection of over 15% of the State’s land base.
One of the greatest conservation stories in the world is the ACE Basin – a 350,000-acre landscape at the confluence of the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto rivers that stands as a global model for voluntary, partnership-driven conservation. Located in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, the ACE Basin represents one of the largest undeveloped estuaries on the Atlantic seaboard, protected not by heavy-handed regulation, but through cooperation among private landowners, conservation organizations, and state and federal agencies. This landscape-scale effort has preserved critical wildlife habitat, especially waterfowl areas, and working forests and farms maintaining local livelihoods and cultural heritage – demonstrating that economic use and environmental stewardship can reinforce, rather than undermine, one another. Today, the ACE Basin is internationally recognized as proof that conservation succeeds best when it aligns incentives, respects property rights, and operates at the scale of ecosystems rather than political boundaries.
The story America needs is being written here in the Palmetto State. South Carolina’s message to the country should be simple: You don’t have to choose between environmental stewardship and economic strength – you must unite them. We do this by governing with discipline, investing with purpose, and measuring outcomes honestly.
We are one of the fastest-growing states because people know the secret of our beautiful landscapes that provide economic prosperity and access to plenty of places to enjoy the great outdoors. People believe in our future because we have demonstrated that both economic prosperity and conservation are possible. Our leadership role now is to ensure that future continues to be prosperous with clean air, protected water, sustained natural resources, places for people to hunt and fish, resilient communities, and an economy that keeps winning in a world that increasingly rewards sustainability.
That’s not a slogan. That’s a strategy. And South Carolina is proving it works.
– Thomas S. Mullikin, PhD, is the director of the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.
– S.C. Senator Tom Davis (R.–Beaufort) is Chairman of the Senate Labor, Commerce, and Industry Committee
