Across the Chesapeake Conservation Partnership (CCP), partners are making amazing progress toward conservation in the watershed. CCP has a goal of protecting 30% of the watershed by the year 2030 and 50% by 2050. Twenty-two percent (9.1 million acres) of the Chesapeake watershed is permanently protected, as reported in 2022 from the Bay jurisdictions. Reaching 30% by 2030 would protect an additional 3.1 million acres, including the remaining 366,000 acres needed to achieve the Chesapeake Bay Program’s 2025 outcome of protecting an additional 2 million acres beyond the 2010 baseline acres. However, the total number is only a small part of the story.
People across the watershed cherish protected lands for different reasons. Each landscape provides a variety of recreation opportunities, solitude and conservation of public resources. CCP welcomes all who strive to conserve land, whether to protect wildlife and human health or to ensure that we continue growing food sustainably in the region. The Partnership’s five long-term land conservation goal statements were developed in 2015-2016 to provide a set of watershed-wide, inclusive, cumulative and mappable aims to further inform and support land conservation. These goals are protecting farms, forests, human health, habitats and heritage. Here are some snapshots of the progress we have made on those goals.
Farms
Our Goal: Protect the Chesapeake watershed’s productive farms and prime farmland from conversion and secure space for urban farming to ensure permanent, sustainable ‘close to home’ sources of food for the region’s population and to support the economic and cultural value of our working farms and farmers. The productive land and prime agricultural soils of the Chesapeake watershed support a rich heritage of working farms. Yet many of our most valuable farmlands are often close to population centers and subject to intense development pressure. Many of these valuable farmlands are also classified as heirs’ properties, which are generally multi-generational family-owned land that is jointly owned by descendants of a deceased person whose estate did not clear probate. The descendants have the right to use the property but there is no deed or will to prove ownership. Without the proper will or deed paperwork it becomes difficult for heirs to obtain federal benefits for farms and could also force partition sales by third parties.
Where We Stand: The analysis identifies 20,547,229 acres of important farmland for conservation, about 50% of the watershed. Of the 13,658,567 acres of important farmland not in production, most (94%) are currently covered by either forest, shrubs or herbaceous vegetation. Meanwhile, 2,878,357 acres (14%) of farmland important for conservation are permanently protected.
Map of Protected Lands, the CCP Farms Layer, and large unprotected parcels which overlap with the Farms layer
Forest
Our Goal: Protect the Chesapeake watershed’s most ecologically and economically valuable forest land from conversion. These include headwater and riparian forests, large forest blocks, woodlots providing multiple values and forests conducive to timber harvests.
Thanks in part to the efforts of partners, the rate of loss has fallen, but the Chesapeake Bay Watershed still loses 54 acres of forested land a day. Emerging threats such as the increased energy needs of data centers, sprawling development and sea level rise are intensifying the demand for land and are poised to accelerate the loss of forest land.
Where We Stand: Our mapping identifies 22,124,849 acres of important forest land for conservation, about 54% of the Chesapeake watershed. Thirty two percent or 7,018,921 acres of this forest land has already been permanently conserved.
Out of the large, unprotected parcels of land over 300 acres in size in the watershed, 2,353,176 acres (72.6%) are forested.
Map of Protected Lands, the CCP Forests Layer, and large unprotected parcels which overlap with the Forests layer
Human Health
Our Goal: Protect, conserve, and enhance lands that support equitable public health for all, with an urgent focus on underserved communities, both urban and rural too:
- safeguard drinking water protection areas ;
- provide various types of neighborhood green spaces (interconnected where feasible) with a diversity of uses to enhance overall public physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health;
- ensure all people have access to wooded areas, parks, trails and/or public green spaces within a ten-minute walk from their homes; and
- provide public access sites along Chesapeake Bay waterways within 30 minutes for all.
Nature’s role in protecting our air and water supplies is well known but not always acted upon equitably. Research continues to accumulate on the health benefits of being in and near nature. We need to accelerate the rate of protection of the lands and waters that will facilitate and equitably sustain a higher quality of life in underserved communities. We need safe places in our communities to walk, run, sit, play, read, rejuvenate and reconnect. We need places that integrate trees everywhere to cool and clean our air, protect our drinking water and keep us healthy. We need an interconnected network of trails, pocket parks, big parks and natural areas. We need access to the water to put in a boat or a canoe, swim, fish and camp nearby. We need these places as a daily part of our lives — so they can make us active, healthy and connected as individuals and communities.
Where We Stand: In 2022, the Climate and Economic Justice Screening tool assessed and identified communities that are disadvantaged according to updated Justice40 Initiative criteria. As of 2022, 2,266,052 acres of conserved lands were in disadvantaged communities.
Out of the large, unprotected parcels of land over 300 acres in size in the watershed, 1,022,918 acres (31.6%) are in disadvantaged communities. However, small parcels of protected lands in urban areas provide large human health benefits and are also important.
According to the Chesapeake Bay Program, in total, there are 1,387 public access points that provide permanently protected public access to the main tributaries throughout the watershed. Most people living within a wide swath of land near the bay and its tributaries are within a 30-minute drive of one or more public access sites. However, not everyone lives within equitable access to green space, and as our green equity mapping shows, too many are not within walking distance of a public park.
Map of Protected Lands, Disadvantaged tracts, and large unprotected parcels which overlap with the disadvantaged tracts
Habitat
Our Goal: Protect a network of large natural areas and corridors sufficient to allow nature to respond to a changing climate and land development and support thriving populations of native wildlife, migratory birds, fish and plants and sustain at-risk species. CCP also works closely with the Chesapeake WILD initiative to help coordinate action towards habitat conservation. CCP helps coordinate the WILD Roundtable, which aids in providing direction and support for the WILD grants system and strategic direction in habitat conservation throughout the watershed under the five pillars of WILD.
Where We Stand: Our mapping identifies 18,045,776 acres of important habitat for conservation, about 44% of the Chesapeake watershed. Of this habitat, 6,115,252 (34%) are already permanently conserved. We anticipate these numbers changing somewhat in the future as (a) higher resolution land cover data is put into use, and (b) we learn more about how climate change projections may affect habitat.
Out of the large, unprotected parcels of land over 300 acres in size in the watershed, 1,756,576 acres (54.2%) are important habitats.
Map of Protected Lands, the CCP Habitat Layer, and large unprotected parcels which overlap with the Habitat layer
Heritage
Our Goal: Protect the treasured landscapes of our collective heritage from development that would alter the scenery and character that conveys their importance — along with our designated trails and scenic rivers and byways, at our parks, and throughout our state and national heritage areas, valued cultural landscapes and historic districts.
Where We Stand: Our mapping identifies 25,223,598 acres of land associated with designated areas, about 62% of the Chesapeake watershed, or 7,921,494 acres of this land are permanently conserved.
We anticipate these numbers changing as new data depicting resource values associated with designated areas becomes available. Note that important heritage lands overlap substantially with all other conservation goals. Out of the large, unprotected parcels of land over 300 acres in size in the watershed, 1,498,434 acres (46.2%) are in important heritage areas.
Map of Protected Lands, the CCP Heritage Layer, and large unprotected parcels which overlap with the Heritage layer
There are 41 million acres of land in the Chesapeake watershed. About 11% of that area is developed in cities, towns, homes, roads, businesses and industry. But we also rely on the remaining large portions of the watershed to support our lives: that is where we find 22 million acres of important forests that protect our water supplies and climate and help control flooding. It is where we find 19 million acres of important wildlife habitat, much of it on those forested lands. It includes 20 million acres of land that can support farming, including seven million acres now being farmed. It is also where we find 24 million acres of history, farms, forests and habitat that represent our cultural and natural heritage — the places we have said are important to who we are as a people that provide us with recreation, hunting, fishing, tourism and other vital economic sectors. We need to keep half the watershed in these conditions to make us whole. Today, just under a quarter of the watershed–22% or 9.1 million acres–is permanently conserved. Our 2025 land protection goal will bring us to 24%.
For more maps of large unprotected parcels, see here. For more on mapping lands and our goals across the landscape, see our Chesapeake Atlas.
Written by: Ben Alexandro and Alicia Sabatino
Photo Credit: Alicia Sabatino, Chesapeake Conservancy
Lightning Update is a regular communication of the Chesapeake Conservation Partnership. Any opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions of the Partnership or member organizations.
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Support for the Chesapeake Conservation Partnership is provided by:
National Park Service Chesapeake
EPA Chesapeake Bay Program
USDA Forest Service
Pennsylvania Department of Conservation & Natural Resources
Virginia Outdoors Foundation
US Fish & Wildlife Service
Chesapeake Conservancy
The Chesapeake Conservation Partnership is co-convened by:
