(Washington, DC) — Unlike the political borders that cross our nation, nature knows no boundary. So it is no surprise that successful conservation requires efforts on a regional scale. This is particularly true for coastal ecosystems, where water and land forms interact as integrated ecological units. Coastal ecosystems comprise less than 10 percent of our nation’s land area but support far greater proportions of our threatened and endangered species, fishery resources, migratory songbirds, and migrating and wintering waterfowl. Unfortunately, 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.
The November-December 2007 issue of the National Wetlands Newsletter, funded by a generous grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, focuses on the landscape-scale initiatives of the FWS Coastal Program. The Coastal Program seeks to avoid further species declines by enhancing the agency’s efforts within the nation’s coastal areas and by securing funding for conservation, including habitat restoration efforts. It provides incentives for voluntary protection of threatened, endangered, and other species on private and public lands alike. The Coastal Program’s experience with landscape-scale conservation in Maine, South Carolina, the Florida Gulf Coast, and Puget Sound are highlighted in this issue. In each instance, a holistic approach has been integral to their success.
For nearly three decades, the nationally recognized National Wetlands Newsletter has been a widely read and esteemed journal on wetlands, floodplains, and coastal water resources. The Newsletter, published by the highly respected Environmental Law Institute®, analyzes the latest issues in wetland regulation, policy, science, and management through feature articles written by local, national and international experts from a variety of perspectives.