Addressing the South's Most Urgent Needs
Results and leverage are two words most frequently used to describe the Southern Environmental Law Center. SELC works in all three branches of government, using the power of the law to conserve healthy air, clean water, wild lands, and livable communities. We have close partnerships with more than 100 local, state, and national groups, complementing their efforts with SELC’s professionalism, legal and strategy expertise, and unique region-wide perspective.
- Healthy Air
- SELC’s Healthy Air Program is reducing emissions from the South’s two major sources of air pollution: coal-burning power plants and automobiles. SELC’s top priorities are fighting rollbacks of air-quality safeguards at the federal and state level; creating stronger controls for mercury; and factoring air quality into transportation planning in our region’s fastest-growing cities.
- Clean Water
- Clean drinking water and healthy aquatic habitat are top concerns for SELC. The South boasts more miles of rivers (and more types of rivers) than any other region, and SELC’s Clean Water Program aims to keep ours clean and flowing—and to rescue waters that have become too polluted for swimming, fishing, or wildlife.
- Land & Community
- The South is the fastest growing region in the U.S. SELC’s Land and Community Program is stopping the worst sprawl-inducing projects; educating decision-makers about smarter growth alternatives; and reforming transportation and land-use policy. In doing so, we are steering the South toward a balanced future that accommodates economic prosperity, livable communities, and a healthy environment.
- Southern Forests
- Renowned for its rich and diverse forests, the South is cutting more timber than the rest of the U.S. combined. SELC’s Southern Forest Program is championing the 5 million acres of national forest in the Southern Appalachians and promoting conservation-oriented stewardship on the forestlands in our region that are privately owned.
- Coast & Wetlands
- Nowhere in the world can you find such a rich assemblage of beaches, barrier islands, maritime forests, estuaries, and wetlands as the South enjoys. SELC’s Coast and Wetlands Program is creating and enforcing powerful ecosystem-scale conservation tools—and stopping site-specific threats like the Navy’s proposed jet-landing field on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula.
