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ERF Partnership



It will take a major effort on the part of everyone concerned about the future of the nation's estuaries to reverse years of degradation and neglect. More and larger restoration projects are needed, more monitoring and research will be required, and more funding must be sought and secured from both public and private sources.

To rise to the challenge, leaders of Restore America's Estuaries and the Estuarine Research Federation (ERF) have agreed to pursue an aggressive collaborative agenda to advance estuarine habitat restoration.

The partnership includes pursuing actions in four major areas: advocacy and policy development, planning and implementation, research, and networking and communication:

ADVOCACY AND POLICY DEVELOPMENT
  • Engage in a national outreach campaign aimed at decision-makers and the public at large to raise understanding about habitat restoration, the urgent need for action and the necessity of a long-range stewardship approach to meet restoration needs.
  • Seek specific legislative, regulatory and administrative policy changes that will promote quality restoration, including revisiting the regulatory mitigation process and looking for ways to eliminate conflicts and over-laps in regulatory requirements and non-regulatory programs at the federal and state levels.
  • Seek additional funding for restoration design, implementation, monitoring and research to increase the quality and quantity of estuarine habitat restoration activity.
  • Develop mechanisms for scientific involvement in developing restoration policies, regulations and plans, to strengthen the scientific basis of all restoration activity.

PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION
  • Involve scientists as core participants in restoration activities at the project, estuary and ecosystem levels to ensure that plans incorporate the best quality scientific information available at the time.
  • Involve scientists in the development and implementation of monitoring protocols for community-based restoration activities, drawing on their expertise to develop monitoring protocols and interpret results.
  • Involve more social scientists and grassroots organizers in restoration planning, design and implementation to incorporate a broader range of interests and concerns into restoration practice.
  • Co-sponsor additional national or regional events on ways to approach habitat restoration, including developing transferable models and refining broadly applicable monitoring protocols and success criteria.

RESEARCH
  • Incorporate research components into more community restoration projects by building partnerships between research teams and restoration practitioners and developing a graduate student internship program between universities and advocacy organizations.
  • Initiate research projects directed at moving from small demonstration projects to the next level in size and scale, including experiments to take successful pilot projects and transfer them to other sites in a region as part of developing regional models.
  • Advocate for the inclusion of restoration research in the priorities of EOS, NSF and other funding sources to increase the amount of funding available for habitat restoration research.

NETWORKING AND COMMUNICATION
  • Develop scientifically sound public information pieces to provide citizens and policy makers with education on habitat restoration needs and practice.
  • Coordinate with existing data sources to establish a common database of restoration research and activities that is updated frequently and easily accessible to all interested parties.
  • Develop a roster of scientists, by region, willing to collaborate on planning and implementing community-based restoration projects
  • Develop a habitat restoration case study series documenting successes, failures and transferable findings and techniques.
  • Promote the formation of state level technical teams including participants from universities, state agencies and advocacy groups, to integrate restoration planning, implementation, research and funding efforts at the state and regional levels, building on existing models and experience.

For more information about the Restore America's Estuaries-ERF Partnership please contact us at info@estuaries.org.