Coastal Program
OUR MISSION
To efficiently achieve voluntary habitat conservation, through financial and technical assistance, for the benefit of Federal Trust Species.
What Is a Coastal Ecosystem?
A "coastal ecosystem" includes estuaries and coastal waters and lands located at the lower end of drainage basins, where stream and river systems meet the sea and are mixed by tides. The coastal ecosystem includes saline, brackish (mixed saline and fresh) and fresh waters, as well as coastlines and the adjacent lands.
All these water and land forms interact as integrated ecological units. Shorelands, dunes, offshore islands, barrier islands, headlands, and freshwater wetlands within estuarine drainages are included in the definition since these interrelated features are crucial to coastal fish and wildlife and their habitats. A variety of animals, and plants complete the ecological system. The definition of "coastal ecosystem" also applies to the Great Lakes, where enormous bodies of freshwater play an ecological role similar to oceans.
Coastal wetlands are commonly called lagoons, salt marshes or tidelands. If you live along the coast, these natural systems are likely to be a common sight, although in many areas, coastal wetlands were among the first places to be converted and developed for human activities.
Why Is the Coastal Program Needed?
Our Nation's coasts provide important fish and wildlife habitat, far beyond their limited geographic extent. Coastal ecosystems comprise less than 10 percent of the Nation's land area, but support far greater proportions of our living resources. Specifically, coastal areas support a much higher percentage of the Nation's threatened and endangered species fishery resources, migratory songbirds, and migrating and wintering waterfowl.
Today, these species and their habitats face serious threats in coastal regions from human population growth and the development and disturbance that are often a consequence of growth. Population projections indicate that our coastlines will continue to receive the majority of the Nation's growth and development, promising to compound today's habitat losses.
As habitat is degraded, reduced or eliminated, plants and animals suffer population losses that can lead to the need for protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Service's Coastal Program is working to avoid further species declines by enhancing the agency's efforts within the Nation's coastal areas and securing funding for conservation, including habitat restoration efforts.
The Coastal Program is a leader in building partnerships and restoring estuary habitat under the Estuary Restoration Act of 2000.
How the Coastal Program Works
The Coastal Program integrates all Service activities in high priority coastal ecosystems to:
- Identify the most important natural resource problems and solutions;
- Influence the planning and decision-making processes of other agencies and organizations with the Service's living resource capabilities;
- Implement solutions on-the-ground in partnership with others; and
- Instill a stewardship ethic, and catalyze the public to help solve problems, change behaviors, and promote ecologically sound decisions.
Since the great majority of the Nation's coastal areas are in private hands, conservation of these ecologically important habitats is vital to protecting coastal natural resources. The key is to find solutions that ensure self-sustaining natural systems despite conflicting demands on our natural resources.
The Coastal Program provides incentives for voluntary protection of threatened, endangered and other species on private and public lands alike. The program's protection and restoration successes to date give hope that, through the cooperative efforts of many public and private partners, adequate coastal habitat for fish and wildlife will exist for future generations.