Protecting the Great Marsh

The System

Spanning over 25,000 acres along the northern Massachusetts coast, the Great Marsh is the largest contiguous acreage of salt marsh north of Long Island. The system includes a number of important coastal habitats including saltmarsh, beaches, eelgrass beds, coastal dunes, and productive mudflats. Together, these habitats provide a range of critical services that support our community health and well-being including: mitigating climate change, storing carbon, filtering and cycling nutrients, buffering storms and floods, serving as nurseries for important species, supporting commercial and recreational fisheries, and offering opportunities for recreation and education. To protect this critical ecosystem, policy makers, managers, researchers, and practitioners, are all working together to better understand the system and how to protect it into the future.

MassBays National Estuary Program

MassBAys

The 8TGM committee serves as the Upper North Shore Local Governance Committee (LGC) for the Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Program (MassBays). MassBays is one of 27 National Estuary Programs that was established and funded under section 320 of the Clean Water Act in 1987. Its mission is to empower coastal communities to protect, restore, and enhance their coastal habitats. To fulfill this mission, MassBays engages local, state, and federal entities to advance the use of scientific information and provide technical support for better decision-making. The MassBays planning area extends from Salisbury in the north to Provincetown in the south, covering over 1,000 miles of coastline and encompassing 50 different coastal communities. To promote grassroots decision-making and local action, MassBays divided its planning area into five different regions: Upper North Shore, Lower North Shore, Metro Boston, South Shore, and Cape Cod. Each region has its own Local Governance Committee, which is supported by a MassBays Regional Coordinator.

Comprehensive COnservation Management Plan

With regional input and guidance, MassBays develops and maintains a Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP) which acts as a blueprint for guiding coastal conservation actions. Each Local Governance Committee uses this document to identify needs and goals for their region, which in turn shapes the focus of the committee and determines the work plan of the MassBays Regional Coordinator. The major goals outlined in the current MassBays CCMP are to:

• Provide new resources to support research and quality data collection and monitoring

• Share data to establish targets and baselines which support action and implementation efforts

• Conduct regular and locally-informed reporting that documents progress towards target conditions

Local Governance Committee

Eight Towns and the Great Marsh representatives share a responsibility to be active and proactive participants, serving as a liaison with community officials and citizens. The 8TGM Committee elects a chairperson, who serves as a spokesperson for the group and works closely with the Regional Coordinator to set program priorities, meeting agendas and facilitate meetings. The committee meets monthly, and works closely with local officials, citizens, nonprofit groups, and state agencies to promote their work.

MassBays Regional Coordinator

Just as each 8TGM representative serves as a liaison between the Committee and their local communities, the MassBays Regional Coordinator serves as a liaison between 8TGM and the two cosponsoring agencies, MassBays and the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission. The Coordinator works to implement policy set out by MassBays and keep the Committee's goals and projects in line with the CCMP.  The coordinator assists communities with project development, grant-seeking, grant-writing and grant/project implementation, organizing workshops, putting together educational outreach materials, and coordinating site visits and meetings.  The Coordinator sets the agenda for and organizes monthly meetings, and facilitates dialogue and decision-making among members.  The Coordinator represents 8TGM at meetings and works closely with federal and state agencies, local officials, and nonprofit organizations.