Nanticoke River/Large Landscape Conservation
Photo by Matt Rath/Chesapeake Bay Program
The Nanticoke River, which runs from central Delaware through the Eastern Shore of Maryland and into the Chesapeake Bay, is considered one of the most pristine rivers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The river’s name acknowledges the Indigenous people who thrived along its shores for more than ten thousand years prior to the arrival of European settlers and who continue to live there today.
The Nanticoke watershed encompasses approximately 725,000 acres, including more than 50,000 acres of tidal wetlands, and provides critical wildlife habitat for migratory waterfowl, 180 state or globally rare plant species and more than 70 animal species that are considered rare or uncommon. Often called the “Everglades of the North,” the Nanticoke watershed is threatened by the encroachment of development, sea level rise, habitat degradation and fragmentation.
To conserve the Nanticoke and its resources, Chesapeake Conservancy helped convene a team of seemingly unlikely partners who share a common mission of conserving open space and creating a corridor of protected land in the Nanticoke watershed. Through their joint efforts, the partners seek to fulfill the ambitious target of protecting half of the Chesapeake Bay watershed by 2050.
A Seemingly Unlikely Partnership
More than 150,000 testing and research flights a year depart from the Chesapeake’s Western Shore at one of the U.S. Navy’s premier aircraft testing locations, the Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River. En route to the Atlantic Ocean, these flights soar over the Chesapeake Bay and the Nanticoke watershed.
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Photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Brittany A. Chase/DoD
Since residential and commercial development are not the ideal neighborhoods for this special-use airspace, protecting natural and working lands supports both the Navy’s mission and conservation. In 2015, the Nanticoke watershed was included as part of the Middle Chesapeake Sentinel Landscape, strengthening military readiness throughout the Atlantic Test Range and providing a new tool in the Chesapeake conservation toolbox through the U.S. Department of Defense, Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) program.
Other Nanticoke conservation partners include the U.S. Department of Interior, which has helped protect habitat for wildlife at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and through later expansion of the refuge, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which maintains a legacy of working lands through conservation and agricultural easements. State agency partners include Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources and Department of Agriculture, Maryland Environmental Trust and Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and Agriculture. There are also a host of national, state and local nonprofit partners (see a full list of Middle Chesapeake SentinelLandscape partners).
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Through this patchwork of support, Chesapeake Conservancy and our partners have protected 25 properties totaling 3,458 acres in the Nanticoke watershed, creating a network of protected lands in excess of 19,300 acres. Key to all this success has been the Mt.Cuba Foundation, whose generosity and more than $4 million in private funds have been matched with state and federal dollars to conserve the land.
Looking Ahead
While there is much more work to be done, the Nanticoke River watershed is celebrated as a global example of landscape scale conservation with more than 30% of the watershed protected from development. Conservation has also bolstered the local economy by helping to create much needed public land for recreational opportunities in communities that are lacking in these resources.
Chesapeake Conservancy has identified 25 additional high priority parcels totaling 1,345 acres to be protected within this high priority migration corridor as part of a broader effort to improve the overall health and functionality of the Nanticoke watershed.
Feature Photo by Matt Rath/Chesapeake Bay Program
Project Timeline
