Navassa is a town in Brunswick County, North Carolina, United States.

[4] The Navassa and Cape Fear region in southeastern North Carolina is considered an exceptionally rich biodiverse area in the United States.

An assessment of biodiversity was completed by the State and prioritized terrestrial habitats based on the presence and quality of significant natural areas, rare species, important bird areas, high quality wildlife habitat, and wetlands.

Anadromous means that fish are born in fresh water nurseries of Navassa's creeks and rivers, spend most of their life in the sea (Atlantic Ocean) and return to the town's fresh waters to spawn.

The natural area has been altered by human influences of ditching, diking and roadbed construction.

Sturgeon Creek, along Navassa's southern limits, is a tributary of the Brunswick River and supports the same uncommon natural community type of Tidal Freshwater Marsh.

The 154-acre (62 ha) marsh contains a population of Cypress Knee Sedge, a rare plant species.

In the southeastern North Carolina area, the Gullah people of today are direct descendants of slaves who worked in the rice and peanut plantations of the Cape Fear River valley.