SELC: Champions for Conservation
Protecting the South's Air, Water, Wild Places, and Communities
For the past 20 years, the Southern Environmental Law Center has used the full power of the law to conserve clean water, healthy air, wild lands, and livable communities throughout the Southeast. As the biggest, most powerful environmental organization headquartered in the South, SELC is able to work simultaneously in all three branches of government, and in all of our six focus states, to comprehensively address the most urgent problems facing our region.
Watch No Other Region: An Introduction to SELC (47 sec.)
National safeguards: Partnering with national groups, SELC defends fundamental federal safeguards. In Congress, we are reaching out on both sides of the aisle to educate the southern delegation about the special values and needs of our region, and inform them about strong public support for core conservation issues that crosses party lines.
©Craig Tanner
Proactive protection at the state level: SELC is increasingly strengthening state law and policies; this will help guard our region against growing gaps at the federal level. For instance, having formed alliances with doctors and utilities to help enact North Carolina's Clean Smokestacks Act, SELC is seeking a similar bill in the Virginia General Assembly. We are working with the Tennessee Department of Transportation to achieve remarkable reforms in road-building policy and practices. And, as a leader of the Georgia Water Coalition, SELC is helping to create the state's first comprehensive water management plan.
Legal action: The courts are a critical line of defense. SELC is using targeted legal action to stop or prevent environmental abuses and ensure that existing laws and policies are enforced. By choosing our cases carefully, we are able to set far-reaching precedents.
©Craig Tanner
Empowering local communities: Finally, SELC is bringing its experience to bear in local communities where, by inserting our professionalism and legal, policy, and technical expertise, we can partner with grassroots groups and citizens for major impact. Having become the acknowledged expert on the two major sources of air pollution in the South (cars and power plants), SELC has undertaken an enhanced Clean Air Project that is focusing on Charlotte, the Triad and Triangle in North Carolina, and South Carolina's Greenville and Columbia.
"SELC's commitment to the South is: we will not accept unhealthy air, polluted water, poorly planned growth, and the decline of our natural treasures," says SELC founder and executive director Rick Middleton. "We do not have to live like this, and our children have a right to the same beautiful, natural areas from the mountains to the coast that we've enjoyed. SELC is bigger, stronger, and more powerful than ever, and we are working hard for you during these urgent and challenging times."
