Editors’ Note: To celebrate Earth Day on April 22, The Window Seat is devoting this week to exploring some of the world’s natural environments, hereby declaring this Nature Week. Through our Nature Week posts, we hope to inspire all travelers to get outside and interact with nature no matter where they happen to be. For more ideas, visit our collection of Children & Nature road trips and volunteer opportunities.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret. You may think you've frolicked on the best beaches of Panama City, Florida, but you haven't. A long time ago my hometown parceled off a portion of our beaches and gave it over to the tourists who come every year with their boom boxes, cans of Natty Light, and coolers.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member wheretogonext.

We try to look the other way as the trash builds up and the wildlife moves out. We attempt to comfort ourselves with the "secret" beaches that are left, where sea turtles still hatch and find their way to the sea, where the view is unblocked by high-rise hotels, and where MTV's Spring Break fears to tread, but it's getting harder.

According to the Clean Beaches Council, last year "pollution at the nation’s 3,500 ocean, lake, and bay beaches resulted in more than 25,000 closing or swimming advisory days the highest number in the 17 years that records have been kept." Grim statistics such as this have begun to raise public awareness about the state of America's beaches today, but who exactly controls their use?

Though the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Coastal Services Center strives to educate and work with state and local coastal resource managers, governance of our nation's shorelines varies state by state and even beach by beach. And so the day-to-day fight for our coasts falls to cash-strapped local governments, big-hearted volunteers, and non-profit organizations.

Among local governments, Fort Lauderdale is the big kahuna of conservation, thanks to its participation in the Blue Wave Campaign. Started in 1999, this campaign is the first national beach certification program in the U.S., which judges all participants on "water quality (based on EPA standards), beach and intertidal conditions, safety, service, habitat conservation, public information/education and erosion management."

Plus, many non-profits are making a big splash in protecting our shores. In addition to starting the Blue Wave program, the Clean Beaches Council is using DNA testing to identify E. coli contamination, and each year the organization releases its Annual List of Clean and Healthy Beaches.

Another coastal champion, Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman, aka "Dr. Beach," also publishes an annual America's Best Beaches List and is currently working with the Laboratory for Coastal Research on the National Healthy Beaches Campaign, which aims to find a balance between enjoying our waterfront and protecting it.

As the future of America's beaches remains uncertain, the need for beach lovers to get involved in the local politics of conservation is imperative. Maybe if we all pitch in, join a coastal clean-up or two, we can save our gorgeous shores from destruction and generations to come will enjoy rousing games of beach volleyball, afternoons bobbing in crystal-clear waters, and the adorable march of sea turtle hatchlings to the ocean.