Pembroke Creek
Chowan County, NC

Between 1793 and 1986, North Carolina lost 1.2 million acres of wetlands, the most of any southeastern state. “In 1974 alone,“ Ann Vielsis wrote in Discovering the Unknown Landscape, “large corporate farms, including First Colony Farms, American Cyanamid, and John Hancock Mutual Insurance Company, purchased more than 41,000 acres of forested wetlands on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula with the intentions of growing soybeans, winter wheat, corn, and sorghum and making pastures and feedlots.”

Those acres are now bleeding phosphates, fertilizers, and animal waste into the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, creating algae blooms and fish kills.

The cost of progress is not self-destruction.