Protected Lands Workgroup

Scope and Purpose

The working farms, forests and natural, historic, and cultural areas around the Chesapeake Bay Watershed are central to creating the Chesapeake’s sense of place. These landscapes connect us to deep traditions and vital economic and ecological values. Conserving them is vital to our quality of life.

The governors of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, the mayor of the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay Commission and the federal government collectively set the first collaborative, far-reaching goal for protecting land as part of the Chesapeake 2000 Agreement: “Permanently preserve from development 20 percent of the land area in the watershed by 2010.” By 2008, two years ahead of schedule, through leadership from governors and investments by state legislatures, localities, the federal government, landowners and non-governmental organizations, this goal was achieved.

In 2009, President Obama issued a Chesapeake Bay Executive Order tasking federal agencies with efforts to help stimulate further progress, including to “expand public access to waters and open spaces of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries from Federal lands and conserve landscapes and ecosystems of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.”

The National Park Service convened more than fifty representatives of conservation, historic preservation, and public access agencies and non-governmental organizations to develop recommendations for advancing land conservation and public access. This formed the basis for the goals of protecting an additional two million acres and adding 300 public access sites by 2025--and their complementary implementation actions--set in the Strategy for Protecting and Restoring the Chesapeake Bay Watershed required by the Executive Order and issued in 2010.

The National Park Service and the Chesapeake Conservancy continued to convene the fifty-plus conservation partners regularly to coordinate collaboration on achieving the conservation goals. By 2013, this led to a decision to formalize the group as what is now known as the “Chesapeake Conservation Partnership”. Further, the partners strongly advocated for inclusion of the land conservation (and public access) goals established in 2010 in the new Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement being negotiated and ultimately adopted in 2014. The Agreement reaffirmed and included the identical goals and outcome commitments to conserve an additional two million acres (and add 300 public access sites) by 2015.

Leading members of the Chesapeake Conservation Partnership, already working to advance collaborative progress toward the two million acre and public access goals, also serve as members of the Protected Lands Workgroup under the Fostering Chesapeake Stewardship Goal Implementation Team Team. The Protected Lands Workgroup shepherds and tracks the management strategies and biennial logic and action plans required by the Chesapeake Bay Program for goals and outcomes.

To review the primary documents of the Protected Lands Workgroup, visit https://www.chesapeakebay.net/managementstrategies/strategy/protected_lands.

For more information on the Chesapeake Conservation Partnership's broader land conservation goals, projects, and initiatives visit ChesapeakeConservation.org.