North Carolina protects unspoiled beach for posterity

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]This is Topsail Nature Preserve, stretching miles without disturbance from development. And now it can stay that way forever. We have seen issues up and down our coast with erosion, uh high tides, flooding, and keeping a beach intact and an island intact helps protect the communities to the sound side of this. That's happening as the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust transfers its ownership of the Topsail Nature Preserve to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. Local and state officials joined the organizations at Topsail Beach on Tuesday to celebrate their common goal of preserving coastal land.

[00:00:38]NCDEQ Secretary Reid Wilson says this land will shift because of tides and winds, but not because of bulldozers.

[00:00:46]This is important because this beautiful, wild, rare, unique place will be forever that, wild and available for people to come enjoy.

[00:00:55]Coastal Land Trust worked to obtain the land in order to give it to the state, an effort that cost $8 million.

[00:01:02]>> And this was the first time I've ever had people writing pretty large checks and just thanking us so much for the opportunity to do it. This is a beloved uh piece of land uh here on Topsail Island. Executive Director Harrison Marks says 1.6 million was raised by the community. We we had checks and notes from people who had come here to vacation as kids. Um and and uh they loved this loved this place.

[00:01:26]>> Now the beloved land will be preserved for wildlife and visitors.