BILOXI, Miss. -- A partnership led by Mississippi State University Extension Service specialists recently received a national award for work aimed at understanding and mitigating the impacts of rising sea levels.

The Northern Gulf of Mexico Sentinel Site Cooperative won the Climate Adaptation Leadership Award for Natural Resources in the broad partnership category.

Renee Collini, program coordinator for the cooperative, along with her colleagues Mikaela Heming, Sonia Vedral and Sara Martin, accepted the award at the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies annual meeting on Sept. 9.

Established in 2016 by the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the Climate Adaptation Leadership Award recognizes individuals and federal, state, local and nongovernmental organizations that work to protect natural resources from the effects of climate adaptation.

A program of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the cooperative is a multistate network of stakeholders, researchers, nongovernmental organizations, local community leaders, and state and federal agencies that focuses on improving the ability of coastal communities and natural resource managers to handle sea-level rise and coastal flooding. MSU is one of nine universities and academic institutions that partner with the consortium to provide research and education to coastal communities.

Collini is an Extension instructor based at the Coastal Research and Extension Center in Biloxi and a coastal climate resilience specialist with the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.

The cooperative was one of seven awardees recognized for outstanding efforts to protect fish, wildlife and plants in accordance with the National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy.