The North Carolina Coastal Federation will officially launch its CoastKeeper Program at 4 p.m. on Thursday at the Center for Marine Science. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President of the Water Keeper Alliance, will be the keynote speaker.

The Water Keeper Alliance approved the North Carolina Coastal Federation in November 2000 to license three CoastKeepers. The federation currently operates an office in Wilmington.

The Keeper Program started on New York’s Hudson River, where a coalition of commercial and recreational fishermen mobilized in 1966 to reclaim the Hudson from polluters. They built a boat to patrol the River, hired the first full-time Riverkeeper in 1983 and began filing lawsuits against municipal and industrial polluters.

By 1998, they had filed more than 150 successful legal actions against Hudson River polluters. Largely as a result of their work, the river that was once dead for large stretches in 1966 is now one of the richest water bodies in the North Atlantic. The Hudson’s miraculous recovery has helped to make the Keeper program an international model for ecosystem protection.

Kennedy represents the worldwide group of keepers who now patrol 63 water bodies throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada and Central America. The son of the late U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., Kennedy, Jr. is a renowned environmental lawyer, writer and activist. He is chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper Fund and senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The public is invited to attend the CoastKeeper Launch by calling the North Carolina Coastal Federation at 252-393-8185 or emailing [email protected].