Its focus is on conservation, education, research, and advocacy to protect coastal habitats (the word littoral, from Late Latin littoralis, means "related to the shore").
Some members are people like fishers whose professions depend on a healthy ecosystem, some are marine biologists or other scientists, and many are amateur naturalists, divers, and conservationists.
[2] An early project for the organization was to protect the USS California (ACR-6), a cruiser that was sunk during World War I, by a torpedo from a German submarine, a few miles from Long Island.
[7][8] In the 1990s, when the state of New Jersey began issuing fines to people fishing and crabbing in Newark Bay and the Hackensack River, where it was illegal due to pollution, the Littoral Society argued the fines were unfair when the state was not taking sufficient action to require companies that created the pollution to work to fix it.
[14] Between May and October, its divers study New Jersey's coasts, producing reports about the range of marine life that exists there and any human-created problems which may have arisen since the previous year.
[15] Starting in 1968, it organized a yearly event called "Your Future in the Sea", comprising films, lectures, and panels which share, explain, and promote coastal research and relevant careers.
[16][17][18][19] Nelson Bryant of the New York Times credited one of its early symposiums which first raised public awareness of the ecological dangers of the pesticide DDT based on its impact on a Lake Michigan fishery.