National Strategy for Estuarine Restoration Coalesces to Restore One Million Acres of Estuarine Habitat

(see also Principles of Estuarine Habitat Restoration, below)

ERF was well represented at a two-day workshop to develop a National Strategy to Restore Estuarine Habitat. The National Strategy identifies and reports on successes, challenges, common trends, and major gaps across the nation; and guides decision makers at all levels to balance restoration with land use and economic development.

The workshop, held by Restore America's Estuaries (RAE) on March 6-7 in Galveston, Texas, was the first presentation of the complete first drafts of the Strategy. The purpose of the workshop was to receive feedback about various sections and regional analyses, plan for next steps and broaden the constituency.

ERF, representing the estuarine scientific community, is a major collaborator in the formation of the National Strategy. In addition to contributing sections of the Strategy, scientists associated with ERF collaborated with RAE to craft the Principles of Estuarine Habitat Restoration (side bar), which form the foundation of the scientific criteria that will be used to evaluate projects and the entire program.

The National Strategy was proposed to implement restoration in a coordinated and consistent manner in response to the loss of estuarine habitats. The primary goal of the Strategy is to guide restoration of 1 million acres of estuarine habitat by 2010. The Estuary Restoration Act of 2000, which was signed into law last November, authorizes $275 million toward this goal. It is our hope that Congress appropriates the funding. The law provides for a National Council, which has yet to meet, to set the guidelines for the program. The National Strategy will provide invaluable assistance in that endeavor.

Currently, RAE and its partners are incorporating feedback received from the March workshop into the National Strategy draft. The Strategy will then undergo another round of public review. The results of this review will be presented in a workshop session at the November ERF meeting in St. Pete Beach, Florida.
RAE and NOAA are developing two web sites to share information about the Strategy. The first site, http://restoration.nos.noaa.gov, is accessible by everyone and contains a brief summary of the effort. The site will be the public portal to all components of the National Strategy. Until then, portions of the site are restricted.
The second site, http://restoration.nos.noaa.gov/htmls/strategy/strategy.html is intended for those participating in the development of the Strategy. It is not a public site and it is password protected. ERF members wanting to get more involved in the process and who wish to participate in this site should contact RAE (Steve Emmett-Mattox at 703-524-0248; semmettmattox@mindspring.com) This site provides the working documents, including the first draft of the National Strategy, the enabling legislation and six regional analyses. Visitors to the site can track the evolution of the documents by participating in any of the six forums on the RAE web site. Each forum holds a sequential tree of messages that comment on the documents and will help improve the National Strategy.

RAE is a nongovernmental organization (NGO) working with government agencies and scientists, community leaders and organizations to develop the National Strategy and coordinate activities among all partners to promote estuarine restoration in the United States. NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service and National Ocean Service are the lead federal partners in the effort to develop a National Strategy. In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been full participants in the development of the National Strategy.

For more information about the National Strategy for Estuarine Restoration contact Fred Short, Jackson Estuarine Laboratory, 85 Adams Point Road, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824; Phone, 603-862-2175; Fax, 603-862-1101; e-mail,fred.short@unh.edu.

Principles of Estuarine Habitat Restoration

A copy of the full report can be obtained from the Restore America's Estuaries web site (www.estuaries.org) or by calling the Estuarine Research Federation (410-586-0997). The Principles can also be found at http://restoration.nos.noaa.gov/pdfs/rae_erf.pdf.

Context
Principle #1: Preservation and enhancement of existing habitat are critical to the success of estuarine habitat restoration.
Principle #2: Estuaries can be restored only by using a long-term stewardship approach and developing the constituencies, policies and funding needed to support this.
Principle #3: The size, scale and amount of restoration activity must increase substantially to have a significant effect on over-all estuarine functioning and health.
Principle #4: Greater public awareness, understanding and involvement in estuarine habitat restoration are necessary to the success of individual projects and achieving national restoration goals.

Planning
Principle #5: Restoration plans should be developed at the estuary level to set a broad vision, articulate clear goals, and integrate an ecosystem perspective.
Principle #6: Estuarine restoration plans should be developed through open regional processes that incorporate all key stakeholders and the best scientific thinking available.

Project Design
Principle #7: Project goals should be clearly stated, site specific, measurable and long-term (in many cases greater than 20 years).
Principle #8: Success criteria for projects need to include both functional and structural elements and be linked to healthy, local reference habitats.
Principle #9: Site plans need to address off-site considerations like potential flooding, salt water intrusion into wells, and damage to existing septic systems, to be sure projects do not have negative impacts on nearby people and property.
Principle #10: Scientifically based monitoring is essential to the effectiveness of restoration projects and over-all estuarine restoration.

Implementation
Principle #11: Engineering practices should be applied using all available ecological knowledge, maximizing the use of natural processes to achieve goals.
Principle #12: Adaptive management should be employed at as many restored sites as possible, so they continue to move toward desired endpoints and self-sustainability wherever possible.
Principle #13: Long-term site protection is essential to effective estuarine habitat restoration.
Principle #14: Public access to restoration sites should be encouraged wherever appropriate, but designed to minimize impacts on the ecological functioning of the site.