Lives in the Time of Rising Seas

Conservation as a way of life in the Outer Banks

Looking back at Corolla, NC from the docks of Coastal Explorations. Courtesy of WFU Graduate Sustainability Program.

I went to the Outer Banks (OBX) for the first time this fall as part of the annual trip offered by the Sustainability Graduate Program at Wake Forest University. My decision to finally travel to the area was long awaited as a native of North Carolina. The program was intended to allow students, a mix of graduates and undergraduates (like myself, a junior), to engage various stakeholders on hot button pressing issues of climate change and sea level rise. We had discussions with people holding many different viewpoints — some native to the area — about how they have historically engaged with the environment and its evolution.

Students explore the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. Courtesy of WFU Graduate Sustainability Program.

While driving toward the coast, the landscape began to melt into the horizon — becoming the linear plane that separates the terrain from the sky. The clever elevation of the slightest hill of the Piedmont, or the mountains of the western part of the region disappeared as the land transitioned into the sea. Coming upon the vastness of the ocean was surreal, not because it was the first time I had seen it, but because the number of times you experience it doesn’t change its presence and ecological…