Our Blueprint for a Resilient Lower Mississippi River
NewsOn World Water Day, Audubon has identified the most important places for birds and people from Missouri to the Gulf Coast.

Protecting America's shores for birds and people
Under Audubon’s coastal resilience initiative, we are working to protect and restore coastal habitat through natural infrastructure policies and projects to reverse the declines in shorebird populations and to protect coastal communities from the impacts of a changing climate. Natural infrastructure, including wetlands, living shorelines, eelgrass, and barrier islands, serve as the first line of defense for coastal communities facing stronger, more frequent storms and sea-level rise.
Audubon works at the federal level to support and expand policies that preserve and protect undeveloped coastal ecosystems, like the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, and to ensure that the federal government includes natural infrastructure in annual spending programs meant to improve our country's infrastructure and recover from national disasters. We advocate for those investments to be prioritized in underserved communities that are overburdened by pollution and that face disproportionate risks from climate impacts.
Additionally, Audubon state offices are working to design and implement on-the-ground natural infrastructure projects in communities, including projects to rebuild barriers island in the Gulf of Mexico and South Carolina, build living shorelines and restore oyster reefs in North Carolina and Connecticut, restore marshes and beneficially use dredged sediments in Long Island Sound, and the San Francisco and Chesapeake bays.
Audubon's new suite of policy recommendations for Congress and the Biden administration will make our communities and birds more resilient to climate change. By restoring and protecting our natural landscapes like wetlands, beaches, and floodplains, we can we can shore up these first lines of defense that protect communities against storm surge and rising seas.
On World Water Day, Audubon has identified the most important places for birds and people from Missouri to the Gulf Coast.
Audubon’s new conservation strategy identifies the most important places for birds and people in Puget Sound.
Audubon’s new conservation strategy will create a resilient future for the Long Island Sound area.
The hearing covered four coastal bills that would protect people and birds in the face of climate change.
A dredging operation provides material to restore Crab Bank, an important seabird sanctuary in Charleston Harbor.
Audubon won a lawsuit to prevent sand mining on protected beaches and plans to expand this powerful policy.
Audubon's policy platform lays out the need for natural infrastructure to protect birds and people in the face of climate change.
The Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act accounts for the unjust burden that climate change poses to communities of color.
Portland Audubon calls on Oregon's congressional delegation to champion the Blue Carbon for Our Planet Act.
Congress must expand on the success of the Coastal Barrier Resources Act to protect people and birds from climate change.
The Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act will restore and protect coastal areas that buffer communities and birds from climate change.
As Audubon Louisiana assesses damage to its coastal sites, including Rainey Sanctuary, people in Louisiana need help to recover from the storm.
The devastation to human communities is overwhelming, but the story for birds is more complex.
Audubon’s assessment of the effects of hurricanes will inform restoration efforts that can protect our coasts in the future.
Without coastal restoration that makes beaches less vulnerable to storm surges, climate change will be a threat, and not just from sea level rise.