President's Letter

More than a year ago, we set out to produce a pretty standard-issue report on the plight of habitat in our nation's estuaries and coasts. Our working title was "Habitats in Crisis." NOAA agreed to fund the project and we arranged for our colleagues at the North Carolina Coastal Federation (NCCF), one of our 11 member organizations, to do the research, writing, and design work. The idea was to profile different estuaries across the country and examine the dire problems and challenges facing them.

But somewhere along the way, in all the researching, interviewing, and writing, a new storyline emerged. Frank Tursi, the NCCF Cape Lookout Coastkeeper, and Christine Miller, NCCF's Communications Director, the principal writer and editor for this report respectively, kept running across, well, hopeful and inspiring stories, stories where one or two people, or maybe a small community group, made a huge difference in saving or preserving their local watershed. After being just a bit slow on the uptake, we realized, belatedly, that these were stories we wanted to tell. "Habitats in Crisis" became "Hope for Coastal Habitats: People, Partnerships & Projects Making a Difference."

"Hope for Coastal Habitats" contains a lot of good news. There's the story about how two Wisconsin boys in the '60s set out to save one of the last true remaining strips of coastal prairie along Lake Michigan. Then there's the one about how a retired Navy officer helped resurrect one of the country's historic oyster fisheries along the Lynnhaven River in Virginia. One of my favorites is the Chums of Barker Creek, a small group of concerned citizens near Seattle who mounted a successful effort to replace a neighborhood culvert that had blocked salmon migrations for decades.

That said, there's also plenty of bad news in "Hope for Coastal Habitats." The wholesale destruction of coastal watersheds through overdevelopment and pollution, the loss of species and species habitat, and the real and increasing dangers of climate change constitute the gravest threats our coasts have ever faced.

It is no surprise that the bad news gets the biggest share of attention from both the press and the public. The problems are global and daunting--seemingly demanding of huge solutions both governmental and technological, and beyond the scope of small-scale fixes and individual initiative.

The truth is that huge solutions are impossible without pressure from and participation by individuals, groups, cities, and townships. Change comes from the bottom up. It is the small that makes the big possible. And, in many ways, this is what Restore America's Estuaries is all about: The power of the few to make that difference.

Jeff Benoit President