'Habitat, habitat, have to have a habitat'

January 27, 2003

by Roman Jesien. (Jesien is the science coordinator for the Maryland Coastal Bays Foundation.)

"Habitat, habitat, have to have a habitat" is one of those irritating little songs that keeps ringing in your mind much too long after you hear it.

The song was brought to Ocean City last week by Steve Emmett Maddox, program director of Restore Our Estuaries. Steve, a participant at a workshop on coastal habitats, used this song to illustrate the basic concept of habitats.

In this case, the bottom line is about as simple as a child's song-- habitats are places where plants and animals live. Change or destroy the habitat and the critters have no place to live.

Although the bottom line is simple, getting there is not. The workshop, sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic National Estuary Program which includes the Maryland Coastal Bays Program, provided a forum for scientists, university researchers and private citizens to wrestle with the myriad issues of coastal habitat restoration and enhancement.

The goals of the workshop were to establish a framework on which to base a habitat restoration plan, to establish criteria for prioritization of restoration efforts, and to establish measures of restoration success.

The habitat restoration plan is in response to the federal Estuary Restoration Act of 2000, which was passed in response to the alarming degradation and habitat loss in many of our nation's estuaries.

The goals of the Act were to develop a national strategy for creating and maintaining effective estuary habitat restoration partnerships and to enhance monitoring and research capabilities to ensure that estuary habitat restoration efforts are based on sound scientific understanding and innovative technologies. The specific goal of the Act is to restore 1 million acres of estuary habitat in the nation by 2010.

Included in the new strategy is the preservation of estuarine and freshwater habitats that form complex physical and hydrologic features and the protection of living organisms within estuaries and their associated ecosystems.

Some of the issues discussed in the workshop included what resources should be protected, habitat goals in light of sea level change, the challenge of invasive species, and identification and assessment of fish nursery habitats. Workshop participants left with more questions than answers, but the real value was the chance to exchange ideas.

Degradation is an insidious process that is usually cumulative. Like throwing out one bag of trash along the road, the loss of one small wetland may not be noticeable. But the effect of many acres of wetlands lost over a period of time, just like many bags of trash along the roadside, can be substantial.

Picking up trash is easy, restoring complex estuarine habitat functions and accommodating human activities in some kind of balance is a lot harder.

Part of the National Estuary Program, the Maryland Coastal Bays Program is a cooperative effort between Worcester County, Berlin, and Ocean City which have come together to produce the first ever management plan for their bays. Home    |    About Us    |    Contact Us    |    Site Directory Copyright 2003 - Maryland Coastal Bays Program Questions? Email: mcbp@mdcoastalbays.org