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Cape Romain Resilience Initiative
Our Goals
Working collaboratively to protect birds and wildlife, habitats, and communities around Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge from a changing climate and enhance resilience.
What We’re Doing
We work with local partners and community members to advance coastal habitat restoration, promote the use of nature-based solutions, and increase community capacity to engage in resilience planning.
As sea levels rise, coastal bird habitat dwindles and frontline communities, such as those around Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, face increasing threats from changing conditions. For example, increasingly high tides and intense storms often flood community roads, yards, houses, and businesses.
These climate-related issues affect many aspects of community life, including jobs and local economies, housing and infrastructure, recreation opportunities, and the area's beautiful natural wonders and wildlife.
To address these challenges, Audubon South Carolina is working hand-in-hand with stakeholders and residents in Awendaw, McClellanville, and nearby unincorporated communities to find solutions that will benefit both people and birds through the Building Resilient Communities with Nature project.
Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, and the lands and communities surrounding it, has been identified as a high priority area using Audubon's Coastal Carolinas Blueprint. This prioritization tool highlights places that are important now and in the future for both birds and vulnerable communities.
By focusing on these areas, we can ensure that these communities become more resilient and prepared in the face of climate change and sea-level rise, while also safeguarding key bird habitats like marshes, beaches, and barrier islands.
Project Goals and Objectives
The main goals of this community-based resilience work include:
- Work with communities to co-create and prioritize a list of potential nature-based solutions that could benefit both people and birds by addressing challenges identified by community members and stakeholders.
- Increase community capacity to engage in resilience project planning.
- Foster trust and understanding among community members and stakeholders.
To accomplish these goals, the Building Resilient Communities with Nature project team has been working to build trusting relationships and open communication with community members and stakeholders in the Cape Romain region, and engaging with them to gather feedback and insight into local challenges.
Local social and environmental data has been mapped and combined into a vulnerability assessment, which helps to identify which areas are most vulnerable to community-identified challenges, such as flooding. This information is being analyzed, ultimately resulting in a co-developed list of potential nature-based solutions, which can then be used for future funding applications for project implementation.
Learn more and get involved with the project
Engagement with community members and stakeholders is critical to make sure the results of this project are as beneficial as possible. We want to meet you and hear from you! Here are several ways to get involved:
- Check back here for event information.
- Invite us to speak by emailing sc_coasts@audubon.org or calling 843.459.2473
- Share project information in your community and with local agencies/officials, potential funders or project sponsors.
This project is only possible because of the hard, collaborative work of many people and organizations. Project leaders and a Steering Committee help drive the process forward and keep things organized, but at the heart of it all is always community. The voices, values, and observations from towns and unincorporated communities around Cape Romain are what help to shape the project and ensure that community-identified environmental challenges are addressed. Read on to learn more about each part of the project team!
The Lead Project Team
This project is led by Audubon South Carolina and is supported by several key consultants, all shown below. This team organizes important meetings and events and provides the expertise needed to engage with communities in the project area, collect important social and environmental data, and ultimately co-create a prioritized list of nature-based solutions and initial designs to benefit communities and birds alike.
The Steering Committee
The Building Resilient Communities with Nature Steering Committee consists of residents, municipal officials, local non-profits, faith / community-based leaders, and others who live or work near Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge. The Steering Committee (listed in the table below in alphabetical order) works closely with the Lead Project Team to assist with engaging communities in the project area to identify the environmental issues affecting them and the locations where nature-based solutions can be applied.
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Djuanna Brockington | Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor |
| Sharon Cash | Buck Hall neighborhood resident |
| Jestin Clark | Francis Marion National Forest |
| Thomas Colleton | Concerned Citizens Group of Unincorporated Communities & Tibwin neighborhood resident |
| Sherri Fields | Audubon South Carolina |
| Grace Gaspar | Friends of Coastal South Carolina |
| Takeya D. Green White | Town of Awendaw & Awendaw neighborhood resident |
| Susanna Hopkins | The Nature Conservancy |
| Sara Phelps | Ducks Unlimited |
| Tricia Midgett | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (retired) |
| Kristin Miguez | Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments |
| Lewis Porcher | The Lincoln Regional Center of South Carolina |
| Calvin Randolph | Concerned Citizens Group of Unincorporated Communities & South Santee neighborhood resident |
| Sam Seawell | Lowcountry Land Trust |
| Angela Singleton | Ten Mile Historic Preservation Committee & Ten Mile neighborhood resident |
| Barbara Singleton | Tibwin neighborhood resident |
| Marcella E. Smalls | Germantown neighborhood resident |
| Erica Xavier-Bouvier | Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor |
One of the main objectives of this project is to compile a list of prioritized nature-based solutions that have been co-created by the project team, community members, and stakeholders.
Solutions to environmental issues tend to exist along a gradient. At one end is "hard" or "grey" infrastructure, such as pipes, pumps, or storm barriers like rockwalls or bulkheads. These hard infrastructure solutions are often detrimental to wildlife and the environment.
On the other hand, natural and nature-based solutions, or "green" infrastructure, help improve ecosystems in both rural and urban areas, addressing problems from sea level rise, flooding, and extreme weather. These solutions protect habitats, support wildlife, create green spaces, and manage resources like water and food. By working with nature and human-made systems, natural and nature-based solutions offer lasting social, economic, and environmental benefits.
"Green" or "nature-based" infrastructure solutions tend to work alongside, or imitate, natural features. Examples of green infrastructure solutions include rain gardens, bioswales, living shorelines, and water parks. "Natural" infrastructure refers to features that are already present in our environment, such as marshes and forests, which provide us with many benefits like protection from coastal storms, water quality improvement, recreation, and provision of wildlife habitat. By protecting and maintaining these natural features, such as through wetland restoration or marsh migration, the benefits they provide people and wildlife can be preserved.
If you're interested in learning more about nature-based solutions in South Carolina, please visit the Nature-Based Exchange website!
Increasing Resilience Through Habitat Conservation and Community Building
Our Coastal Program’s goal with the Cape Romain Resilience Initiative is to weave together several important pieces of an overall resilience tapestry by focusing on both small-scale and large-scale natural solutions that will benefit birds and people. We are doing this by co-creating nature-based solutions with local communities and by working with partners to advance large-scale habitat restoration in the refuge. This is an imperative area of focus because it was identified as important for birds and communities in Audubon’s Coastal Carolinas Blueprint.
Community Resilience
We are leading a project working with communities around Cape Romain to co-create nature-based solutions that will help address local flooding challenges while also benefiting coastal bird species. Additionally, we aim to increase community capacity to engage in resilience planning work and elevate community voices and concerns. We are doing this work in consultation with specialized contractors, including Surculus, The Asiko Group, and Robinson Design Engineers. The project is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), and The Donnelley Foundation.
Habitat Restoration
We are working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and several other partners to advance habitat restoration in the refuge at prioritized locations, such as through beneficial placement of dredged sediment. It is critically important to restore the barrier islands and salt marshes within Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge because they are vital to nesting, migrating, and overwintering coastal birds, and they act as the first line of defense against flooding and storms to nearby communities. These habitats are also valuable culturally, economically, and recreationally. Our role in this work is to provide ecological expertise, convene partners, and obtain and manage funding for restoration design and implementation. Restoration work is currently in the initial planning phase.
Project Contacts
Sherri Fields
Conservation Director
Erin Rogers
Coastal Program Manager
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