Photo Story: Safeguarding Wilmington's Beach Grass
Why is it important to have more protected beaches, what can people do to help?
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This protected area located at the ends of Wilmington, North Carolina's beaches shows how coastal communities can act to help preserve our ecosystems natural defense system. Here we see how high the sand dunes are because of the healthy seagrass that has helped maintain this area from erosion. In order for people to help more areas like this, many can start off small by spreading awareness to local communities or even by planting in locations that look damaged. No matter what a little goes a long way for our ecosystem. By protecting our beaches we can stop erosion of dunes that help keep ecosystems happy and healthy as well as our beaches from coastal erosion.
This photo captures the dunes of Wilmington, North Carolina. This ecosystem represents what a healthy dune covered in seagrass looks like when unaffected by erosion and human foot traffic.
Tell me the challenge, what is at risk, who is at risk, what is the history of this risk.
Dunes can easily be affected by the presence of humans. Coastal communities lack knowledge of the importance of how dunes can easily influence ecosystem life and their own. In this photo it is shown how greatly beach houses alter dunes. This dune located close to these coastal homes have begun to show damage caused by erosion. Compared to the already protected dunes further down the coast depicted in the first image, many can see how easily human foot traffic and erosion impact our natural defense system.
In this series of photos are shown two different images of the same seagrass. This photo captures sea oats when first planted and still young.
In this photo, we can see what sea oats look like when more matured and taken care of. This photo shows a healthy ecosystem that has been located within the dunes for a while.
A young laughing gull couple located on the beach close to where the protected sand dunes are of Wilmington, North Carolina.
What is happening in the photo, why is this important? Give me a fun stat.
A young woman helps preserve the eroded dunes of North Carolina beaches by planting seagrass that helps keep the dunes from eroding away.