Restoring healthy shorelines for wildlife and communities

Coastlines hold some of the nation’s most productive habitats and greatest concentrations of wildlife — water birds of all shapes and sizes, marine mammals, crustaceans, marine reptiles and unimaginable numbers of fish. 

The coasts are also home to about 40 percent of the nation’s population, an estimated 130 million people, along with major metropolitan areas, industrial facilities and military installations. 

NFWF’s portfolio of coastal and marine investments grew in 2024 to unprecedented levels. Through just one of many programs focused on marine and coastal conservation, the National Coastal Resilience Fund, NFWF awarded 109 grants totaling more than $144 million. 

These investments were made with measurable results for wildlife as a guiding principle, but the benefits of healthy marshes and stable shorelines cascade well beyond wildlife conservation. 

One grant of $2.4 million to the Southern Maryland Resource Conservation and Development Board will enable the organization to construct a living shoreline near Naval Air Station Patuxent River. 

Erosion has been eating away at the shoreline, destroying valuable habitat for wildlife and threatening infrastructure at the station, where pilots test some of the nation’s newest and most advanced jets, helicopters and drones. 

The loss of gently sloping shorelines and grassy marsh areas is particularly onerous for diamondback terrapins, a small marine turtle that must climb ashore to nest in those marshes. 

New offshore breakwaters created by this project will protect the valuable shoreline from boat wakes and intense wave action during storms that regularly pound the Mid-Atlantic states. 

The project will also restore marsh habitat along nearly a mile of shoreline, restoring vital habitat not only for diamondback terrapins, but also shorebirds and other wildlife. 

Contributing Partners: Chubb Charitable Foundation, Occidental, Shell USA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Defense

This story originally appeared in NFWF's 2024 Annual Report.