The Lowcountry's natural beauty - an economic incentive like none other

As spring drapes its coat of many colors over the Lowcountry, let's pause from our "visioning" for the future long enough to appreciate the only thing that will ever set us apart: our natural beauty.

People never wax poetic about a diversified economy, a larger mall, a longer air strip.

Instead, I get poems like "Beautiful Beaufort" from real estate agent Carl Joye. It ends with these lines:

"Whitetails and gators and ospreys and doves,

Make our world better, and so truly loved.

Blue crabs and bass and flounder and trout,

Make our Southern bellies so full and so stout.

Just a small rhyme about my very special home,

I will always come back to from wherever I roam."

Another reader rhapsodizes about the soothing rhythm of the sea lapping against white beaches, the bright stars of our dark nights and the melodic wind breezing through tall pines. She says we're all "drawn to the intoxicating weather that is merely a backdrop for the bald eagles, brown pelicans and medley of long-legged shorebirds. So much beauty. It keeps us focused on what is truly life-affirming."

A Sea Pines booklet for prospective buyers in the early 1960s outlines a dream to mix a new community with life-affirming natural beauty. It speaks of 240 species of birds, woodlands, bays, beaches and the manmade wonder of golf, which would cost a couple $137.50 in annual greens fees.

It lists the developer's three fundamental commitments: the enforcement of restrictive land-use covenants; a master plan by Hideo Sasaki of Boston that would provide an array of land uses but protect nature; and the dedication of a large open space that came to be called the Sea Pines Forest Preserve.

"With a bow to Julian Huxley's essay, 'Man's Challenge: The Use of the Earth,' " the booklet reads, "the Sea Pines owners believe with Huxley that:

" 'One function of the earth whose importance we have to recognize is that of wilderness, the function of allowing men and women to get away from the complications of industrial civilization, and make contact with fine scenery and unspoiled nature. Of course, it is not everyone who likes wilderness; perhaps luckily a considerable number of people enjoy crowds and prefer their vacations to be organized. But wilderness lovers constitute a sizable minority -- and also include a sizable proportion of interesting characters and original thinkers. Wilderness is, in the long run, one of the major functions humanity demands from the surface of the earth.' "

Maybe Beaufort County can no longer be confused with "wilderness." But we cannot afford to be confused with Atlanta.