Cocktails & Conservation

SELC uses the power of the law to champion all the things you love about the South: clean water, healthy air, mountains, forests, rural countryside, and the coast. By working at the national, regional, state, and local levels and in all three branches of government, this organization is able to do what it takes to get results. We strengthen laws, we make government agencies do their job, and, when necessary, we go to court to stop environmental abuses or to set far-reaching precedents.
 
Partnership is at the core of SELC’s mission, and we are currently working with more than 150 other groups.  
 
The results speak for themselves. SELC has given added protection to more than two million acres in the Southern Appalachians, and brought eight million acres of high-quality wetlands under federal protection.  Our lawyers won a unanimous victory in the U.S. Supreme Court that catalyzed the largest clean-up of air pollution in our lifetime—and we are now seeing our first victories in cleaning up the widespread problem of coal-ash pollution in the South.  Looking forward, SELC is leading the South toward a cleaner energy future by preventing construction of new coal-burning plants; retiring old, dirty plants; and expanding energy efficiency, solar, and wind power.