Expanding the Benefits of Coastal Restoration

As a national leader in coastal conservation for over 30 years, Restore America’s Estuaries has helped to move the needle on impactful coastal and estuarine restoration projects. However, we also recognize and acknowledge the need for coastal access to all communities. We believe that we can leverage our national reach to help address these needs by more intentionally integrating the perspectives of all coastal communities throughout our work in coastal restoration and preservation. We hope to effect lasting change and fairly distribute the benefits of conservation across all communities. 

Enhancing Access  

As a stakeholder convener, grant facilitator, and project implementer, our goal at Restore America’s Estuaries is to foster a more inclusive space for community engagement and stakeholder convening, and to help guide this field to become a more just space for all to engage in and benefit from the protection of our nation’s invaluable coastal resources and habitats.   

In 2019, Restore America’s Estuaries updated its strategic plan to include a new core pillar explicitly focused on expanding the benefits of coastal restoration. We believe it is essential to evolve and expand how estuarine and coastal restoration is practiced.  

Through the Inclusive Coasts Initiative, we are committed to: 

• Expanding participation in conservation leadership and decision-making. 
• Ensuring fair access to funding, resources, and coastal restoration efforts. 
• Building partnerships that reflect the breadth of communities connected to our nation’s estuaries.
• Strengthening coastal resilience through equitable and community-led solutions. 

Vision   

At Restore America’s Estuaries we aim to engage a more robust and broad community to increase the scale of our conservation efforts and achieve widespread coastal protections that lead to healthy and resilient estuaries and bays and coastal communities. Our hope is that a fair approach to coastal and estuarine restoration will benefit the broad populace of this nation and its many coastal habitats.   The organization framework for the Inclusive Coasts Initiative is the CARE framework.

• Coastal Access: Ensuring all communities have opportunities to participate in and benefit from conservation efforts.
• Resilience: Strengthening coastal communities and ecosystems through sustainable, inclusive solutions.
• Engagement: Fostering collaboration and shared leadership in conservation initiatives.

Goals  

Restore America’s Estuaries has set goals to accompany this statement and plans to update goals as new opportunities and knowledge arise. As of 2025 RAE will:   

• Continue to expand the reach and scope of RAE’s webinars and actively work to invite all emerging leaders in coastal and estuarine science, policy, and projects  

• Increase outreach to smaller, lower resourced conservation organizations  

• Continue to publicize efforts within coastal conservation throughout RAE’s newsletters and social media platforms  

• Continue to expand the reach of our work through the intentional incorporation of fair principles throughout our projects, committees, and campaigns  

• Ensure that future RAE staff training and onboarding includes CARE (Coastal Access, Resilience and Engagement) coursework to promote an approach of access for all

• Encourage RAE staff to engage in coastal conservation by supporting participation in workshops, conferences, webinars, and other acts of engagement within CARE  

• Increase efforts to create an engaged RAE staff by intentionally recruiting and retaining staff, consultants, fellows, and interns with varied skills, abilities, experiences, and backgrounds 

• Dedicate to the successful realization of the Inclusive Coasts Initiative workshops for grantmakers and project implementers  

• Publish all findings and resources from the workshops to our audience via our website and social networking platforms, free of charge  
• Expand reach by translating one-page summaries of findings post-workshop