Protect Coastal Habitat

Protect, enhance, and assess the extent and health of coastal habitats and their associated wildlife through restorative measures and monitoring to combat deterioration and loss.

Since 1994, the Partnership has focused on managing, monitoring, researching, and protecting habitats and living resources in Long Island Sound. Over the past three decades, restoration efforts have targeted 12 types of coastal habitats: beaches and dunes, cliffs and bluffs, estuarine embayments, coastal and island forests, freshwater wetlands, coastal grasslands, intertidal flats, rocky intertidal zones, riverine migratory corridors, submerged aquatic vegetation beds, shellfish reefs, and tidal wetlands.

Moving forward, the Partnership aims to restore 1,000 acres of coastal habitat within the Long Island Sound coastal boundary. To ensure restoration benefits are shared more broadly, 40 percent of these restored acres will be located in areas that currently lack natural habitat. Specific targets include restoring at least 10 acres of seagrass and 250 acres of tidal wetlands, continuing the momentum built under the 2015 Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP).

In addition to restoring habitat, this objective prioritizes the protection and enhancement of existing coastal ecosystems to improve resilience to extreme weather events. Coastal habitats across the United States are facing accelerated loss; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2009–2019 Wetlands Status and Trends Report found that wetland loss increased by more than 50 percent during that period, driven by sea level rise, land development, and other pressures.

To address these threats, the Partnership will monitor the extent and condition of key coastal habitats, including tidal wetlands (such as high and low marshes, based on vegetation type) and seagrass beds. Maintaining and expanding these habitats will help sustain essential ecosystem services, including providing critical food and habitat for wildlife, cycling nutrients, protecting shorelines from erosion, and supporting regional biodiversity.

Actions

• Restore coastal habitat by supporting projects that implement established restoration techniques or help validate innovative techniques and include broad collaboration and communication.
• Promote the installation of living shoreline methods for coastal habitat restoration and protection, including the conversion of existing hard-armored shorelines to a more natural condition.
• Survey, research, and monitor changes and associated causes in extent and abundance of coastal habitat types and their associated wildlife with focus on tidal wetlands and seagrass.

Programs