Habitat Restoration and Preservation Program
Throughout coastal North Carolina, thousands of acres of wetlands and
hundreds of miles of shoreline have been altered, degraded or
destroyed. Replacing these natural habitats with roads, parking lots and
other hard, constructed surfaces has reduced the land's ability to
absorb and filter polluted runoff before it enters our waters. Oyster
reefs and clam beds have also declined, resulting in a loss of valuable
aquatic habitat area and a reduction in the ability of oysters and clams
to cleanse the water.
The federation’s Restoration and Preservation Program seeks to
restore and preserve some of our most threatened environments, including
wetlands and oysters, while also increasing the people’s appreciation
for the value and beauty of our coastal habitats.
Volunteers
are crucial for the success of our restoration projects, and we give
people hands-opportunities to protect our environment. Whether growing
marsh grass seedlings, bagging shells to build new oyster reefs or
offering information through workshops, we believe hands-on restoration
is the first step in becoming an active steward in protecting our coast.
Our Habitat Restoration and Preservation Program includes an array of
projects in a diverse variety of coastal habitats – oyster reefs,
longleaf pine forests, wetlands – and includes “living shoreline”
alternatives to traditional shoreline bulkheads and growing and planting
marsh grasses with students from our coastal counties. We also work to
restore and protect the hydrology of watersheds to maintain and clean up
coastal water quality.
Program Goals
Restore and protect coastal water quality and critical habitats
The federation’s habitat and water quality restoration and preservation strategies are rooted in these concepts
- Devise projects that replicate or maintain natural processes
including watershed hydrology so that they result in meaningful
improvements to environmental health and are sustainable
- Work at scales that are meaningful in terms of accomplishing real improvements to environmental health
- Stay focused within high priority watersheds so that the
cumulative effects of numerous projects add up to obtain needed
environmental gains
- Connect the resources of federal, state, and local funders and
governmental agencies to provide for project synergy that could never be
achieved by one entity alone
- Engage people directly in restoration and preservation efforts
as a way to obtain their long-term understanding and participation in
providing stewardship of coastal resources
- Project successes result in additional project successes as
people see tangible progress being made to protect and restore coastal
resources
We've built more than 300 acres of reefs in the last three years.
We've worked with farmers in Hyde County to restore the hydrology on the
their farms and thus protect Pamlico Sound and we partner with
businesses, local governments and schools to build rain gardens to
better control stormwater. Those are just some of our accomplishments in the last three years.
