Sand Hills State Forest

About Sand Hills State Forest

Since the acquisition, Sand Hills has been used as a demonstration site for forest management.

The Forestry Commission introduced a programme of active forest management in the early 1960s, when the soil was recovering, and in recent years attention has been paid to the restoration of native longleaved pines. In the early years, the goal was to restore the land, heal it from erosion and abuse, and protect it from annual forest fires.

The active and prescribed combustion programme keeps the long-leaved pines alive and stimulates the seed-bearing plants and the growth of new trees and shrubs.

The forest is a self-supporting department of the Forestry Commission, which works exclusively with the income from the forest. Darlington and Chesterfield also receive 25% of all forest revenue, and this amount is split between the two counties based on the percentage of forest in each county.

Sand Hills State Forest is located in the southern part of Chesterfield County, just outside the city of Darlington, Virginia, and is part of a unique ecosystem.

It is made of barren sand deposited by prehistoric seas, and the region is characterized by deep sand, which generally occurs in dry conditions. It consists of sand dunes, rocky outcrops, grassland, wetlands and other vegetation, as well as a number of small streams and streams.

The federal government bought the land from many local landowners, and some of the landowners settled on more fertile land elsewhere. The area has since been reclaimed under the federal government's land reclamation program.

After the timber production had been almost completely eradicated, an intensive reforestation project was launched in the mid-1990s. As a result, the once barren sand hills are now home to more than 1,000 hectares of trees and beech trees, and a wildlife management program has been launched in conjunction with habitat-improvement efforts. The land was managed as state forest by the S.C. State Forestry Commission until 2010, when the title was transferred to the state under an agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior.