Environmental Advocacy

The N.C. Coastal Federation formed in 1982 to fight strip miners who wanted to lay open 120,000 acres of peat bogs along our northern coastal plain to extract the peat for fuel. We rallied the support of fishermen, environmentalists and ordinary North Carolinians, and together we fought off the miners. Much of the land they wanted to despoil is now protected in national wildlife refuges.

Ever since, the federation has been a strong advocate for the protection of our coastal waters, lands and culture. We have pushed tirelessly for better environmental rules and regulations and for tougher enforcement of existing ones. We have been at the forefront of every major coastal policy debate or regulatory fight for almost 30 years now. We fought for better land-use planning and tougher stormwater rules. We lobbied legislators to keep seawalls off our beaches and mega-landfills out of our marshes. Our advocacy led to a moratorium on hog farms, tighter restrictions on discharges from phosphate mines and tougher marina rules. We have gone to court to keep bulldozers from chewing up our marshes and polluters from fouling our air and water.

Through it all, we learned that we can't get far without the support of people who cherish our coast. Marshalling the good sense of such people has been the secret behind our successful advocacy program.

Left to right: People gather in the streets of Wilmington to protest Titan cement; Lena Ritter, a shellfisher from Onslow County and a former federation president, welcomes the late Walter Cronkite at a rally to protect Stump Sound; and people pack a gymnasium to urge better land-use controls in eastern Carteret County.

Coastal Advocates

The federation has grown and matured over the years and we now have very effective restoration and education programs and an active program to preserve sensitive coastal lands. Environmental advocacy remains a core mission. The federation employs three full-time Coastal Advocates, one in each of our regions, whose main jobs are to help enforce regulations and promote better rules and laws. To learn what the advocates are doing, check their regional pages.

• Northeast Region
• Central Region
• Southeast Region

Coastal Policy

The federation also advocates for long-term policies that promote more sustainable development practices, that better enhance or protect water quality or that preserve marine habitats. See our Coastal Policy Page to learn about current projects.

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