HEADS UP! Signatures Needed TODAY to Protect the Gullah/Geechee Epicenter, St. Helena Island!

[Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition]

Peace All!

As you know, we have been fighting to protect the epicenter of Gullah/Geechee culture, St. Helena Island for decades.  Over the last three years, we have been embroiled in nonstop attacks from a destructioneer that wants to break the St. Helena Island Cultural Protection Overlay District (CPO) law.  The CPO forbids the building of golf courses and gated resort areas.  Those areas have brought not only cultural displacement but environmental degradation to numerous Sea Islands in the Gullah/Geechee Nation.  These types of building patterns cause rapid erosion of these environmentally sensitive places.  Therefore, folks try to put in things such as bulkheads which are not nature-based solutions.  Trying to couple these with replanting spartina grass or oyster castles does not balance out the environmental loss nor the negative cultural impact that this destructionment brings.  Areas have to be scientifically and environmental viable areas for spartina grass or oysters to grow.  We cannot take chances with destroying what is naturally in existence by putting in what is unnatural and then claim we will later put natural things back.  We need to sustain the acres of wetlands that have been part of the Pine Island and St. Helenaville areas of historic St. Helena Island all along.  You can help us do this!

Please make sure to sign this letter and call for a public hearing on this permit request for a bulkhead at Pine Island. Click Here for a link to a form letter that can be customized: https://secure.coastalconservationleague.org/a/hold-public-hearing-bulkhead-permits-st-helena.  Destructioneers are applying for permits to build a 900+ ft. bulkhead and oyster castles on the Village Creek side of Pine Island. We need 20 signatures for DES to hold a public hearing.  The deadline to submit comments is TOMORROW 9/20.   PLEASE SIGN TODAY!  

Hold a Public Hearing for Bulkhead Permits on St. Helena

Also, please make sure to sign this petition that we will take to Beaufort County Council AGAIN on Monday, September 22nd for their 6 pm meeting at Burton Wells Recreation Center: https://www.change.org/GullahGeecheeCulturalProtectionOverlay

 Sign the Petition

Sign the Petition Protect the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Protection Overlay for St. Helena Island

Beaufort County Council will vote on the Pine Island development agreement and map change request.  We need to keep the St. Helena Island Cultural Protection Overlay District intact!  Tell Beaufort County that you stand with the native Gullah/Geechee community of St. Helena Island and our neighbors and allies and that they need to REJECT the development plan and UPHOLD the CPO!  Protect St. Helena Island, SC!  Hol pun Gullah/Geechee culcha!

Please feel free to share this with close friends and allies. Tenki Tenki fa hunnuh support ya!

Peace,

Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition

Webe Gullah/Geechee Anointed Peepol! Lun mo bout who webe www.gullahgeecheenation.com