The Francis Marion Duck Ponds area is vital for local wildlife and conservation efforts, ensuring the preservation of natural habitats.

Francis Marion University now controls one of the largest single tracts of conservation land ever transferred to a South Carolina public university. The Florence-based school assumed ownership of the “Francis Marion Duck Ponds” property in June 2026, adding roughly **8,355 acres of Pee Dee River bottomland to its holdings**.

The tract sits along the Great Pee Dee River in Florence and Darlington counties. It carries more than eight miles of river frontage, running from the U.S. Highway 301 bridge north to the Wachovia Hills area [Post and Courier, 2026]. It includes more than 7,500 acres of bottomland hardwood forest and wetlands touching Schoolhouse Branch, Black Creek and Back Swamp [The Times and Democrat, 2026].

Earlier planning documents from October 2025 described the tract as roughly 8,460 acres, and some FMU headlines rounded the figure to “nearly 8,500 acres” [Open Space Institute, 2025; Patriot News, 2025]. The 8,355-acre number is the survey figure recorded at closing.

The acquisition pushes FMU’s total landholding to roughly 9,300 acres. That makes the university the second-largest university landholder in South Carolina, trailing only Clemson [FMU release, 2025; Post and Courier, 2026].

Exploring the Francis Marion Duck Ponds

How the Deal Was Built

The transfer was not a simple purchase. It was a coalition acquisition engineered by the Open Space Institute, a New York-based land trust that has become the connective tissue for large conservation deals across the Southeast [Open Space Institute, 2025].

OSI bought the tract from clients of Manulife Investment Management, the Boston-based asset manager that held the land through its natural-capital investment arm [Open Space Institute, 2025; WPDE, 2025]. OSI held title temporarily, then conveyed the property to FMU after the state signed off. Approvals came from the Joint Bond Review Committee and the State Fiscal Accountability Authority [Patriot News, 2025].

The cash stack was assembled from four sources. Florence County Council voted unanimously on October 16, 2025 to commit **$1.55 million** — the county’s largest single conservation outlay to date. The South Carolina Conservation Bank and the South Carolina Office of Resilience added state dollars. The Darla Moore Foundation contributed private philanthropic money [Open Space Institute, 2025; Post and Courier, 2026].

The coalition builds on a nearly identical structure OSI ran the year before. In December 2024, OSI assembled the adjacent 7,600-acre Snow’s Island Assemblage from Manulife and Weyerhaeuser and transferred it to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources as a Heritage Preserve and Wildlife Management Area [SC Department of Natural Resources, 2024]. Florence County’s $1.5 million commitment to Snow’s Island was the county’s first-ever conservation investment from its capital sales tax fund [SC Department of Natural Resources, 2024]. Duck Ponds picks up where Snow’s Island left off, both geographically and financially.

Neither OSI, FMU nor any state agency has disclosed the purchase price paid to Manulife’s clients. No public source reviewed lists a dollar figure for the transaction itself.

Ben Duncan, Chief Resilience Officer at the South Carolina Office of Resilience, and Nate Berry, Senior Vice President and Southeast Office Director at OSI, led the state-and-institute side of the coalition [Open Space Institute, 2025]. Dr. Maria Whitehead, OSI’s Senior Vice President of Land, ran the acquisition mechanics [SC Department of Natural Resources, 2024].

A Working Forest, Not a Preserve

FMU is not treating Duck Ponds as a hands-off nature preserve. President Fred Carter has framed the tract as a “living laboratory” for the university’s forestry, environmental science and environmental studies programs [Post and Courier, 2026; The Times and Democrat, 2026].

“This is a remarkable tract of land and an extraordinary addition to the university,” Carter said at the closing announcement [Post and Courier, 2026]. The FMU Board of Trustees extended Carter’s contract in June 2026 by two years through July 2031, cementing the leader who negotiated the deal in place to oversee its rollout [SCNow, 2026].

The tract will anchor FMU’s new **Bachelor of Science in Forestry**, scheduled to launch in Fall 2026 [FMU forestry page, 2026]. The program is the first four-year forestry degree at FMU and one of only a handful in South Carolina. It is contingent on completion of a new Forestry and Environmental Science Facility, targeted for late 2026 or early 2027, and on Society of American Foresters accreditation [FMU forestry page, 2026].

Dr. Andrew J. Londo, Chair and Associate Professor of Forestry at FMU, is building out the curriculum [FMU forestry page, 2026]. Coverage of the program launch has pointed to a first cohort of 30 to 40 students, though the FMU forestry page does not confirm a specific cohort size [Patriot News, 2025].

The land itself gives students the same working conditions they will face in the field: managed timber stands, wetlands, river-frontage forestry and the complications of a large multi-county tract. FMU will run the curriculum on land the university owns outright, rather than on leased or borrowed acreage.

The Horry County Angle: A Pipeline From Conway

The Duck Ponds land is not in Horry County — but the degree that runs on it now is directly connected to the Grand Strand. On **April 10, 2026, FMU and Horry-Georgetown Technical College signed a 2+2 Memorandum of Agreement** creating a direct transfer pathway from HGTC’s Associate in Applied Science in Forestry Management Technology into FMU’s Bachelor of Science in Forestry [MyHorryNews, 2026].

That means a Horry County resident can now start a forestry career at HGTC in Conway, finish an associate degree, then transfer directly into FMU’s four-year program with access to Duck Ponds as a working lab. No detour to Clemson, no move out of the Pee Dee region, no lost credits at the transfer point.

“We are proud to work with them in meeting the growing demand for skilled professionals in the forestry profession,” Carter said of the HGTC agreement [MyHorryNews, 2026]. HGTC President Dr. Marilyn “Murph” Fore said the partnership “reflects our shared commitment to student success and workforce development [MyHorryNews, 2026].

Timber remains a working industry across the Pee Dee and Coastal Plain, and Horry County still hosts commercial forestry operations alongside its tourism economy. A local training-to-degree path keeps that talent inside the region rather than shipping it upstate.

The pipeline also gives HGTC students access to a land base most undergraduate programs cannot match. FMU’s roughly 9,300 acres of holdings include Duck Ponds’ hardwood bottomland, wetlands, river frontage and prior campus tracts — a full range of Southern working-forest conditions inside a single institution.

There is also a watershed connection. Water that flows past Duck Ponds drains into the same Pee Dee basin that runs through Horry County before reaching the ocean. How FMU manages 7,500-plus acres of bottomland hardwood upstream affects downstream water quality on the Grand Strand.

The land acquisition is split with roughly 8,085 acres in Florence County/375 acres in Darlington County) and OSI’s purchase price was $22.5 million

What Is Still Unclear

Several material questions remain unanswered even after closing.

Public access rules are a third. FMU has not published a policy on hunting, fishing or hiking access at Duck Ponds. The university’s existing Freshwater Ecology Center is open to the public on certain weekdays [Post and Courier, 2026], but that facility is separate from the Duck Ponds tract. Whether prior hunting leases on the land will be honored, renegotiated or terminated is also not addressed in any release reviewed.

OSI often places conservation easements or reversionary clauses on tracts it transfers to institutional owners. Whether such a restriction rides with the Duck Ponds deed has not been disclosed.

Large timber tracts under private investment ownership typically carry hunting leases and generate periodic timber sales; whether FMU will continue either revenue stream is an open institutional question.

The Bachelor of Science in Forestry program’s accreditation timeline runs into 2027, and the new Forestry and Environmental Science Facility must open before the degree can reach full operation. Horry County residents watching the HGTC pipeline should track both milestones closely — the transfer pathway only works if the four-year program lands its Society of American Foresters accreditation on schedule and the building comes online to house it.

Further Reading

Francis Marion Duck Ponds – Francis Marion University press release — “SC Office of Resilience, Francis Marion University, Open Space Institute, Florence County and Many Others Announce Unique Effort to Secure 8,500 Acres” — https://www.fmarion.edu/sc-office-of-resilience-francis-marion-university-open-space-institute-florence-county-and-many-others-announce-unique-effort-to-secure-8500-acres/

Francis Marion Duck Ponds – Francis Marion University — “A Positive Environment” (Duck Ponds closing coverage) — https://www.fmarion.edu/apositiveenvironment/

Francis Marion Duck Ponds – Francis Marion University — Forestry Program page — https://www.fmarion.edu/forestry/

Francis Marion Duck Ponds – Open Space Institute press release (October 2025 announcement) — https://www.openspaceinstitute.org/news/duck-ponds-1

Francis Marion Duck Ponds – Open Space Institute press release (closing announcement) — https://www.openspaceinstitute.org/news/duck-ponds-2

Francis Marion Duck Ponds – Post and Courier — “SC university takes over more than 8K acres of conservation land” — https://www.postandcourier.com/pee-dee/news/francis-marion-university-sc-duck-ponds-property-forestry/article_c9aff059-a94c-4d1f-8db6-c80aeabf539d.html

– The Times and Democrat — “Francis Marion University assumes ownership of Duck Ponds” — https://thetandd.com/news/community/article_bab6bf02-8226-59d0-864c-1530f10ae352.html

– SC Daily Gazette — “Francis Marion University to take charge of 8K acres in conservation land deal” — https://scdailygazette.com/2026/03/27/francis-marion-university-to-take-charge-of-8k-acres-in-conservation-land-deal/

– WPDE — “Florence County unveils plan to protect 8,500 acres along Great Pee Dee River” — https://wpde.com/news/local/florence-county-unveils-plan-to-protect-8500-acres-along-great-pee-dee-river

– MyHorryNews.com — “HGTC, FMU partner in forestry program; FMU gets access to 8K acres on the Pee Dee River” — https://www.myhorrynews.com/news/hgtc-fmu-partner-in-forestry-program-fmu-gets-access-to-8k-acres-on-the-pee/article_7ade352b-eff4-4ef3-bff8-246a79d46c39.html

– Patriot News Online — “BREAKING: FMU and partners announce plan to preserve 8,500 acres for research and resilience” — https://patriotnewsonline.com/news/2025/10/17/breaking-fmu-and-partners-announce-plan-to-preserve-8500-acres-for-research-and-resilience/

– SCNow — “Francis Marion University trustees extend President Carter’s contract” — https://scnow.com/news/local/education/article_0a086bb8-9f35-4f8b-b7cc-307b1689ee6c.html

– SCDNR — “State leaders, conservation partners celebrate the Snow’s Island Assemblage” — https://www.dnr.sc.gov/news/2024/Dec/dec16-snowsisland.php