Protecting America's shores for birds and people
Brown pelicans cluster on a small sand bar island in Galveston Bay, Texas. Photo: Julia Robinson
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 undeveoped 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.
The Long Island Sound Area Conservation Strategy that lays out the most important coastal areas for birds and people in New York and Connecticut. Our conservation teams in both states use this document as a “blueprint” to advance nature-based strategies to help the Atlantic shoreline weather the impacts of climate change, while also creating healthy habitats for coastal birds.
The Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act accounts for the unjust burden that climate change poses to communities of color.
The Senate Special Committee on the Climate Crisis calls for natural infrastructure solutions to buffer our coasts.
The administration’s unlawful action endangers communities facing an active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season.
Audubon supports the Shovel-Ready Restoration Grants for Coastlines and Fisheries Act of 2020.
Portland Audubon calls on Oregon's congressional delegation to champion the Blue Carbon for Our Planet Act.
Audubon supports the introduction of the Blue Carbon for Our Planet Act.
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.
A tour of some of the affected islands shows the storm’s impacts, but also the surprising resilience of coastal ecosystems.
Audubon’s assessment of the effects of hurricanes will inform restoration efforts that can protect our coasts in the future.
In the wake of an especially destructive hurricane season, conservationists and urban planners are grappling with how to protect coastlines—and are increasingly looking to nature for inspiration.
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