A recent report from Capital News Service reveals that across Maryland’s Eastern Shore, entire forests are dying and generations of Black farming history are disappearing along with them. Experts say the culprit is saltwater intrusion, a slow but relentless process caused by rising seas and worsening extreme weather.
What’s happening?
As saltwater seeps farther inland, it poisons crops and forests from the inside out, turning once-thriving land into marsh or open water. According to the report, more than 70,000 acres of forest in the region have already been lost to this silent flood, becoming “ghost forests.”
Nearly 90% of those acres are now severely impacted, including the long-buried foundations of Harriet Tubman’s birth home, now trapped in an inaccessible ghost forest.
Why is saltwater intrusion concerning?
But saltwater intrusion isn’t just affecting forests and biodiversity. Along the Eastern Shore, farms growing crops like corn and soybeans are affected by the now-salty soil.
“We’ve already lost so many Black farms in Black communities on the Eastern shore,” said the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources researcher and associate professor Kate Tully. “There’s actually a whole history that’s already gone underwater that we will never get back,” Tully adds…