Trust Magazine
Why Coastal Wetlands Need Protection
The big picture
A drone image shows a coastal road traveling through the spotted landscape of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, which has lost some 5,000 acres of tidal marsh to encroaching salt water since the 1970s. A range of such coastal wetlands—which also include mangrove forests and seagrass beds—offer important habitat for juvenile fish species, birds, and other wildlife. These habitats also help to buffer coastal communities from storms and store climate-warming carbon in their soils, branches, and leaves, which helps mitigate the effects of climate change. The Pew Charitable Trusts’ U.S. conservation project works to protect coastal wetlands, which are some of Earth’s most threatened ecosystems.
