SELC’s Long-Term Strategic Action Plan

SELC’s Long-Term Strategic Action Plan

How can one group make a significant impact throughout a six-state region during a time of accelerating environmental threats?  SELC’s answer is an ambitious new multi-year action plan that builds on our core strengths and expands our organizational reach and capacity.  To complement SELC’s proven model—which uniquely combines superb legal skills with sophisticated policy advocacy, regional vision, in-depth knowledge of environmental issues, and home-grown expertise in the South’s culture, people, and ecology, we are committing to:



  • Be a voice for the South in Congress.  By becoming the influential experts on southern environmental issues on Capitol Hill, SELC’s Washington, D.C. office will help pass site-specific bills that defend special places and also shape and enact broader national law that directly affects our region’s ecosystems and environmental health.

  • Expand SELC’s local presence and local impact.  There is no substitute for local presence, so our future vision includes more satellite offices that bring SELC’s regional power to key communities and underserved areas.  SELC has already moved forward with new offices in Charleston, South Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia--and we are seeking funds to match an active challenge grant that will enable us to open an office in Birmingham, Alabama. 

  • Increase our litigation capacity.  Legal action is SELC’s most potent weapon.  We are adding litigation specialists in our three core offices for extra legal muscle on state-focused work, and also boosting our ability to take on complex, multi-year cases of region-wide or national importance.

  • Recruit and train the next generation of environmental lawyers and leaders through our two-year associates program and law-clinic partnerships with leading law schools.

  • Take on special initiatives to save ecological zones in crisis.  We are launching campaigns that reach across state lines and tie together SELC’s various areas of expertise to defend imperiled eco-zones—such as the coastal treasures of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

  • Help address global warming and lead the South toward a new energy future.  Building on 20 years of air quality leadership and a unanimous win in the U.S. Supreme Court last year, SELC is taking a powerful, comprehensive approach to the related issues of power plants, air pollution, global warming, energy efficiency, transportation and land use, and coastal conservation and adaptation.

The Southern Environmental Law Center is in the early stages of a campaign that is reaching out to individuals, families, and foundations and asking them to join us in standing up for the environmental future of this special region.