Restore your coast and improve habitat for fish, wildlife, communities
Find tools and information you need to launch a restoration project in your community
By Elsa Schwartz
One year ago, during Habitat Month 2020, Restore America’s Estuaries and NOAA launched the Coastal Restoration Toolkit (RestoreYourCoast.org), a website that provides resources and project examples for both citizen-driven and organizational coastal restoration projects. Since mare than 40% of the U.S. population live in coastal regions, the potential to support a diverse range of users and inspire much-needed action is great.
Addressing five main topics of concern along coastlines – including region-specific needs and resources – the toolkit empowers homeowners, community members, educators, local government, and resource managers to initiate coastal restoration projects. Features and benefits of the Coastal Restoration Toolkit include:
- Easy-to-follow guidance on planning a restoration project
- Powerful filtering of real project examples by topic or region helps users find what they need
- Funding and permitting resources address financial and technical barriers to actions
- Topics include flooding, coastal erosion, water quality, invasive species, and wildlife habitats.
In the past year we have made many improvements and additions, including adding a 90-second video detailing how to use the Toolkit (above), creating separate project development pages, separating the coastal erosion section into regional pages, and adding more project examples. We are always looking for ways to make the Toolkit better and more usable and would encourage you check out the site and give us your feedback through our brief survey. And send us any pictures or links of completed projects!
Habitat restoration projects, like planting seagrass, restoring oyster reefs, and building living shorelines, are achievable projects that can be undertaken by organizations and volunteer groups big and small. These projects, also provide multiple benefits to fish, wildlife, and protect coastal communities from the impacts of global warming.
The Coastal Restoration Toolkit was created with input from the coastal community, for the coastal community. As such, Restore America’s Estuaries is encouraging the sharing of restoration projects on social media by using the hashtag #RestoreYourCoast and tagging @RAEstuaries on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Please reach out to Elsa Schwartz with any questions and we hope to see you out restoring your coast!
Elsa Schwartz is the Senior Director of Restoration and Administration for Restore America’s Estuaries.
She is based in the Puget Sound.