When Rincon-native Isaiah Scott was 13, he got his first set of binoculars to study the winged creatures that flew, by the hundreds, outside of his childhood home.
Browse Data Centers & Coastal Georgia
Stories on projects, policy, legislation
A year after graduating from Cornell University with a degree in environmental sustainability, Scott has founded a 16-acre nonprofit called Rookery and Roots Conservancy in Effingham County to help study and protect wildlife in a part of Coastal Georgia undergoing dramatic industrial development.
During the last decade, miles of warehouses have transformed the quiet backroads around Scott’s family home. Soon, OpenAI’s planned $20 billion data center is set to grow less than two miles away from Scott’s wild bird preserve, adding to fears of adverse effects on both native and migratory bird species.
Scott, with the financial help from his parents and crowdsourcing from his robust social media following, wants to protect the wildlife he grew up with and widen appreciation for nature.
“We live in a very special area,” Scott said. “My whole mission is to just inspire people to get outdoors and learn about our birds, about our plants, and about nature because it’s very special here.”
Scott’s family has resided in Effingham for at least five generations, part of the historic Gullah Geechee community who settled along the Georgia-South Carolina corridor after emancipation.
Scott grew up as a self-described “nature kid,” and more recently he has grown worried about the significant changes in Effingham. Acres of forest and open pasture land are gone, replaced by warehouses and expanded highways to serve long-haul trucking.
Meanwhile, some of the birds he grew up watching in his backyard, from swallow-tailed kites to kingfishers and other migratory warblers, appear fewer in numbers.
When Scott graduated from Cornell University in 2025, he decided to come home as an advocate for nature — and to help educate Black Georgians like himself about their own heritage with the land.
“I hope to carry on that legacy to live and to have deep roots with our land, with our wildlife, with our water, to continue on the legacy of Gullah Geechee culture,” Scott said. “I couldn’t think of a better place to start Rookery and Roots Conservancy and to create a space that conserves our rich biodiversity and history.”
A hotspot for industrial use and manufacturing, Effingham land is not cheap. Scott began crowdfunding in 2022 for his preserve. Together with the donated funds and some family investment, he purchased 16 acres at the end of Scott Avenue in Rincon for $9,312.
“It’s called Scott Avenue and so that’s you know my last name, and I just thought it was kind of like a divine, just meant to be moment,” Scott said. “This was really a family project, but also … for the community, as more people in Effingham wanted to see places protected, wanted to see more nature preserves instead of warehouses and development.”
With the Rincon Branch Creek flowing through the preserve alongside a wetland habitat of baygall swamp, the wildlife in Coastal Georgia is diverse, even within the small plot of land.
Scott has spotted over 100 different species of birds here, some of declining populations.
Birds he regularly sees include white-eyed vireos, wild turkeys, and red-shouldered hawks. His favorite bird, meanwhile, is the painted bunting.
Other rarer animals have made their way onto the preserve, such as the South Carolina slimy salamander, found only between the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, and the oak toad, the smallest toad in North America.
Compared to development sites spanning hundreds of acres, pockets of protected land create corridors for wildlife to safely travel through, particularly migratory species like deer or turkey. Scott said he hopes to partner with other conservationists and the local government to bridge more gaps between green spaces, which can help mitigate negative environmental impacts of increasing land development.
“What if this was the last habitat in Effingham for oak toads? We’re only just 16 acres, so having these small pockets is very important for preserving wildlife habitat that could help even the smallest of species survive,” Scott said. “The most important thing is connecting all the pieces of protected land.”
Alongside family and volunteers, Scott continues to restore the land, clearing out aggressive species and adding in paving to allow for more visitor accessibility. His fundraising and marketing efforts have been widely shared on social media, with his accounts garnering over 100,000 followers.
All of that work came before this summer’s surprise announcement that OpenAI would build the hyper-sized data center down the road from Scott’s conservation area.
Like any land development, the OpenAI data center will need to apply for permits and undergo a review process on its site. Locally, this includes a Land Disturbance Application, which is a review process of soil erosion and sediment required of all developments over one acre, and a site plan review of various environmental impacts. Both are required before a certificate of occupancy can be issued.
According to Jeff Beauvais with the environmental group One Hundred Miles, the data center will likely require a slew of other permits as well, including state and federal permits. He said these practices are standard and in place to ensure construction and its eventual operations are not harming waterways and the surrounding land.
In a set of emails between OpenAI and the county The Current received, some possible considerations of review and study include wetlands approval, a noise study, a stormwater management plan and a review of threatened and endangered habitats.
“These permits are not designed to stop a project from happening,” Beauvais said. “It’s just designed to reasonably constrain the things you’re allowed to do on the site.”
The county did not respond to questions about details of permitting and review specific to the data center prior to publication.
Scott, for one, sees widespread public backlash to the data center as a chance to jumpstart his advocacy work.
“That really kind of just fired me up to do something about it and to take action,” Scott said. “With Project Camellia, there are a lot of environmental concerns that Effingham residents have been speaking up about. It’s going to be a huge project, and that’s going to come with huge environmental consequences to our noise levels, to our air, to our water, and to wildlife.”
Scott currently has a fundraising campaign to build a bridge over the Rincon Branch Creek to help make the preserve more accessible. The efforts go toward becoming a “living classroom” for education and accessibility to the outdoors in a digital age.
He hopes to open the conservation area to scheduled tours in 2027.
“With a lot more environmental impacts that are starting to take effect, I think more young people are just realizing, like, ‘Okay, what can I do to help be a part of making a change?” he said. “We’re all wanting to do something for a better future.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.