This Holiday Season, Remember Your Coast

All year long our coast gives us protection for our homes, communities and businesses. It gives us peaceful places to recreate. It provides homes and nesting-resting-feasting places for myriad wildlife, including endangered and threatened species. It provides livelihoods to people and value to property.

It truly is a wonderful place. That’s why more than 50% of Americans live within 50 miles of the coast.

During this holiday season, we are busy running around, going to parties and generally preparing. With all our diligence, we have forgotten somebody… or, rather, something – our coasts. Many of us are also going to be thinking about New Year’s resolutions soon. We can combine our gifts to the coast with resolutions for 2016.

1. At holiday parties, talk about the coast and how important it is. Each of us has to be ambassadors for the coast.
2. Write a letter to the editor talking about the importance of the coast to you and your community.
3. Make an appointment with your Member or Congress, either when he or she is home or by joining ASBPA for the Coastal Summit in Washington Feb. 23-25.
4. Talk to your local government official about how important the coast is to the local community and economy.
5. Join organizations that support the coast, whether local, state or national

To do all these things, you’ll need talking points. We have a few to get you started. Pick the ones that are most appropriate for your situation.

• More than twice as many people visit America’s coasts as visit our state and national parks — all of them, combined.
• About 85 percent of all tourism-related revenue in the U.S. is generated in coastal states — where beaches are the leading tourist attraction.
• Each year, government takes in $570 in taxes from beach tourists for every dollar it spends on beach nourishment.
• International tourists drawn to our beaches annually means about $215 in tax revenues for every $1 the federal government spends on beach nourishment.
• One estimate puts the contribution of beaches to the U.S. economy at more than $225 billion a year.
• Well over half of the nation’s gross domestic product ($7.9 trillion) is generated in 673 counties along the oceans and Great Lakes, according to NOAA’s National Ocean Economics Program.
  That adds up to 69 million jobs and $3.4 trillion in earnings. If U.S. coastal counties were a separate country, its economy would be second largest in the world.
• Out of the 313 million people who called the U.S. home in 2010, 39% (or 123.3 million people) lived in counties directly along the coastline.
• With sea level slowly rising, experts say regular beach nourishment and wider and higher beaches will be the answer for as far into the future as planners can plan.
• Wider and higher beaches mean more abundant habitat for birds, turtles — and other lovers of the beach.

This holiday season, give back to the coast a little of the joy it has brought you… and happy holidays!