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.
