Top 10 Endangered Places In The Southeastern U.S.

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The Southeastern United States is rich in historical significance and biological diversity. It’s also a region rife with poverty, low quality education and environmental distress.

The mountains, valleys, rivers, streams, forests and coastal areas that make the Southeastern U.S. a popular destination for tourists as well as scientific research face dire threats from those who want to exploit the natural resources they contain.

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), an environmental advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the Southeast, recently announced its fourth annual list of the top 10 places in the South that face immediate, potentially irreparable threats in 2012.

“The South’s special places and natural riches are threatened by a wave of calculated attacks on the bedrock laws that protect our environment and health,” said Marie Hawthorne, SELC’s Director of Development. “Under the guise of promoting economic growth, anti-environmental forces are working in Congress, in state legislatures, and in government agencies to gut our most essential safeguards.

“The truth is, environmental protection had nothing to do with the financial crisis or today’s weak economy,” Hawthorne added. “Doing away with effective laws and enforcement will accomplish nothing except sacrifice the natural treasures like those on our Top 10 list and other resources that make the South such a great place live, work, and raise our families. We owe it to ourselves — and to future generations — to make sure this doesn’t happen.”

On the following pages, you’ll see breathtaking pictures of these endangered regions, some of which you may have visited or hoped to visit in your lifetime. Some might be right in your own backyard. During this election year, let’s resolve to keep conservation and environmentally-sound regulations at the forefront of the national conversation.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
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Debbie C.

5:03AM PST on Feb 22, 2012

OMG. Some of these locations are so beautiful It is such a shame to lose them.

send a green star

Andrea A.

8:26AM PST on Feb 5, 2012

Thanks. Sad.

Janine H.

9:05AM PST on Feb 4, 2012

This is a very sad story. People only know how to destroy and to pollute something. And other life forms (animals, plants,...) have to go only because "we" humans do not want to share the world with other life forms, these life forms "we" would not eat (vegetarian food is not a bad idea, or eating with conscience as the so called primitive cultures did and still do, if they still exist. No meat/fish every day).

As little child i thought that rain is when God and the angels cry - because "we" humans have forgotten that we need this "intelligence", someone who could help... if "we" hadn't turned away for many centuries ago...

"Only when the last tree has been cut down; Only when the last river has been poisoned; Only when the last fish has been caught; Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."
(Native American proverb)

"We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not yet learned the simple art of living together as brothers." (Martin Luther King)