Worldwide, marine protected areas (MPAs) are often declared by governments to fulfill national or international commitments. However, after being legally declared, MPAs remain in a status referred to as “paper parks”, without any management authority or without any conservation measures in place.  With this publication, WWF Mediterranean intends to mainstream best practices and lesson learned on how stakeholder dialogue, community empowerment, and enhance capacity are key to achieve effective conservation and to begin to apply MPAs as a tool to promote green economies at the local scale.

The Choptank River always scores poorly in the Chesapeake Bay Report Card in terms of water quality and biotic integrity, with evidence that nutrient inputs (particularly nitrogen) are primarily responsible for degraded water quality. This has prompted the requirement for a monitoring approach that can distinguish the distribution and impacts of these various sources of nitrogen.

Local watershed monitoring groups use different methods for data analysis and reporting, which results in data that are of variable quality and report cards that are challenging to compare. This project seeks to create uniform sampling and data analysis protocols for non-tidal indicators, by developing consensus among members of the Mid-Atlantic Tributary Assessment Coalition (MTAC). Implementation of the protocols will improve consistency and reliability of data from watershed groups, and will enable direct comparison of results among existing and future groups.

Working with staff at Restore America's Estuaries, IAN staff will develop a marketing report to describe the links between coastal habitat restoration and fish productivity to non-science audiences. The report will highlight selected fish lifecycles and describe how each stage is dependent on key coastal and estuarine habitats.