Pocosins are naturally occurring freshwater evergreen shrub bogs or wetlands of the southeastern coastal plains. In 1962 pocosins still covered nearly 2.25 million acres in North Carolina-accounting for almost three-quarters of the pocosin ecosystems in the United States, but by 1979 forestry and farming operations had totally or partially altered all but about 700,000 of these acres. In 1985 the Environmental Protection Agency described North Carolina's pocosins as one of the most critically endangered of the nation's many wetland types.