At this moment I’m riding in the back seat of Dave and Patty Slater’s pick-up truck, on our way home from Hyde County, N.C. Hyde County is 400 miles east of here, in the coastal plain, so it’s a long ride.

The Polk County Soil and Water Conservation District holds an agricultural conservation easement on 718 acres of fertile farmland in Hyde County for a man named Holbert who also owns farmland in Polk County. Ten years ago, when Mr. Holbert wanted to put his coastal farm under easement, the Hyde County Soil and Water District folks had no experience at all with conservation easements, so the Polk County Soil and Water Conservation District agreed to take and hold the donated easement with the understanding that it would eventually be transferred to the Hyde County Soil and Water District.

Other than monitoring the easement, the purpose of this trip was to talk the Hyde County Soil and Water folks and other conservation groups in or near Hyde County to see if one of those organizations would agree to hold and monitor the Holbert easement, thus relieving us of that responsibility.

Seven hours in the back seat, looking out the window while watching landscapes come and go, has given me plenty of thinking time.

Land use issues in the North Carolina coastal plain are so different from those of Polk County, and problems confronting farmers in Hyde County are completely different from those of Pamlico County just across the Pamlico River. Fields in Hyde County must be ditched to drain water off fields, yet fields in Pamlico County need irrigation to be viable.

In addition to the actual land differences, the conservationists with whom we met were different. The focus of one group is preservation of farmland and support of local farmers; the other group preserves and restores natural wetlands. These two goals are in direct conflict with each other, yet both are of great value to the land and the people whose livelihoods depend upon it.

Being “down east” for four days has given us a mere glimpse of the difficult environmental choices facing folks working on land use issues. Consider this fact: the relative density of land per person is one person for every 85 acres in Hyde County, as opposed to 1 person for every 7.2 acres in Polk County.

Farming, fishing, and forestry, in that order, are the most prevalent occupations in Hyde County. Fishermen need wetlands; farmers need drained fields. Just where is the balance?

In Polk County it’s a no brainer that we must strive to preserve as much working farmland as possible to stay ahead of the commercial and residential development pressures at our doorstep. Yes, TIEC will bring in lots of money. But it also will bring in more people, more cars, more stores, more mini horse farms – fewer wild spaces, fewer large farms and forests, more noise, yadda, yadda,yadda. Preservation options for Polk County are completely inappropriate for Hyde County. We’re coming home with more questions than we had when we left.

If a farm preservation group, most likely the Hyde County Soil and Water Conservation District, agrees to assume the Holbert easement, then that 718 acres will likely continue producing corn, beans and sugar snap peas for years to come. If the easement goes to the other organization, that land might eventually become an addition to the adjoining Pocosin Wildlife refuge and revert back into wetlands.

A hundred years from now, which scenario would be better? I do not know; none of us do.

One thing I do know, however. Here’s Dave Slater’s quote: “We have a wonderful state with incredible diversity in geography, forests, water, soils, topography, and people.” Each place has a beauty of its own that is undeniable. It is not hard to understand why the Hyde County Ag. Tech young man we met loves it there. As a teenager all he wanted to do was get as far away from Hyde County as he could, as quickly as possible. After seeing the ‘outside’ world, all he wanted to do was get back home.

There is a peace that comes with being in a place where you can feel like a part of nature, as being a part of the same land that people and animals walked on thousands of years ago. The stars above looking down on us also looked down on Cleopatra and Jesus and the dinosaurs. Whether we are standing on top of a tall mountain or in the middle of a boggy field, it’s the same – we are part of something much bigger than our minds can comprehend. But our souls can.