Habitat Goal Implementation Team (GIT 2)

Meetings

About

The Habitat Goal Implementation Team seeks to facilitate the implementation of projects that restore and enhance a network of land and water habitats to support priority species and to afford other public benefits including water quality, recreational uses, and scenic value across the watershed by coordinating the efforts of Chesapeake Bay Program partners. These habitats include tidal and non-tidal wetlands, living shorelines, submerged aquatic vegetation, islands, uplands and forests, and freshwater streams.

Objectives

• Plan: To advance habitat protection and restoration through integrated planning, targeting of funding and technical assistance, generating and testing hypothesis regarding priority species outcomes, identification of emerging issues likely to impact living resources and their habitats, and brainstorming solutions.
• Implement: To provide information and technical assistance needed to accelerate implementation of projects that are strategically placed, innovatively designed or of demonstrated successful design, outcome-oriented, and responsive.
• Evaluate: To promote and support the collection, synthesis, and trend analysis of monitoring data for Chesapeake Bay living resources to evaluate impacts of habitat management actions.
• Communicate: To provide a forum for technical information transfer on restoration techniques and consolidation of performance data across various partner agencies and organizations.
• Adapt: To provide adaptive management recommendations regarding the Bay watershed’s priority habitats to the Chesapeake Bay Program's Management Board. Implementation Strategy.

The Habitat GIT and associated workgroups will meet periodically to:

• Align annual work plan with priorities established by the Management Board;
• Collaborate on implementation of on-the-ground habitat activities;
• Track and report performance toward two-year milestones identified in the Chesapeake Action Plan annual progress report;
• Advise Management Board on barriers to progress and recommend policy and administration changes to overcome such barriers.

Projects