What We DoWhat We Do

Chesapeake Bay Land and Water Initiative

Update: Competitive Grant Program Launches Next Round

The Chesapeake Land and Water Initiative administers an annual grant program to support projects that will accelerate land conservation and stewardship to protect and restore water quality in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and is currently focused on these initial watersheds.

We've launched the 2018-2019 round of the competitive grant program. The submission deadline for Letters for Inquiry has passed, and we will announce funded projects by early April 2019. For reference, the full Request for Letters of Inquiry (LOIs) is available here.

Projects supported in the previous grant rounds are summarized here: 2018 funded projects and 2017 funded projects.

What Happens on Land Ends Up in the Water

The Land Trust Alliance and the Chesapeake Bay Funders Network (CBFN) launched the Chesapeake Bay Land and Water Initiative (the Initiative) in 2016 to deploy an integrated and innovative approach to permanent land protection, stewardship, community engagement, partners and public policy that will preserve or enhance water quality across the 64,000-square-mile Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The Chesapeake Bay region is home to nearly 18 million people — and the way we care for the land will help or hurt our waters. Everyone has a role to play in keeping local rivers and streams a healthy place to drink, swim, fish and paddle.

Land trusts are in a powerful position to improve the health of our waters. Your landowner relationships, a connection to private land, and restoration and stewardship capacity, allow you to deliver the benefits of clean water in places and ways that no one else can.

The vision for the Initiative is a healthy watershed that uses permanent land protection and stewardship to ensure clean water for future generations. Land trusts and their partners across the watershed have the opportunity to play a leadership role in protecting and improving water quality in their communities, and while many are already doing so, more could be accomplished if we expand opportunities to grow their partnerships, skills and capacity.

The Chesapeake Bay Watershed Land Trust Assessment: Accelerating Land Conservation to Protect and Improve Water Quality, a study commissioned by CBFN and conducted by the Alliance with Long Haul Conservation Advisors, identified opportunities for water quality improvements through permanent land conservation programs.

The Initiative encourages partnerships between land trusts, watershed groups, local governments, and others. It brings additional financial and capacity resources to accelerate good work already underway and better prioritize new conservation and stewardship for water. And it works to improve the context in which land trusts operate — through policy, communications, science, and more — so that land trusts have better tools to do more for clean water.

Webinar Series: Registration and Recordings

The Chesapeake Bay Land and Water Initiative presents a two-part webinar series, “(Farm) Land and Water: Success Stories from Chesapeake Land Trusts,” featuring case studies of land trusts working to protect and improve water quality on farmed lands in the Chesapeake. The recording of the first in the series, held April 5, is available. View the recording.

The series is hosted by the Land Trust Alliance in partnership with the Choose Clean Water Coalition and the Chesapeake Bay Funders Network.

Chesapeake Bay Land and Water Initiative Advisory Council

The Advisory Council brings together state and regional thought-leaders and practitioners in the land trust community, as well as the broader field of land conservation and water quality, to advise and inform the development and implementation of the Initiative.

Council members serve as sources of information and support for the Initiative’s two major program areas: land conservation and stewardship, and policy and communications.

Meet the fall 2017 council members:

  • Jim Baird, Mid-Atlantic Director, American Farmland Trust
  • Nicole Faraguna, Director of Outreach and Education, Pennsylvania Land Trust Association
  • Kate Fritz, Executive Director, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
  • Bill Leahy, Executive Director, Maryland Environmental Trust
  • Andy Loza, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Land Trust Association
  • Kristin Saunders, Chesapeake Bay Cross-Program Coordinator, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) and Chesapeake Bay Program
  • Ellen Shepard, Executive Director, Virginia’s United Land Trusts (VaULT)
  • Peggy Stevens, Board Chair, Virginia’s United Land Trusts (VaULT)
  • John Turgeon, Conservation Easement Program Manager and Southern Region Easement Planner, Maryland Environmental Trust

Resources

Thank You

Thank you to the Chesapeake Bay Funders Network members that have generously made pledges and contributions that collectively total more than $1 million to the Chesapeake Bay Land and Water Initiative. The Alliance is working to match their investment 1-to-1 to maximize the program’s reach and impact.

  • Anonymous (2)
  • The Agua Fund
  • The Chesapeake Bay Trust
  • Hillsdale Fund
  • MARPAT Foundation, Inc.
  • The Curtis & Edith Munson Foundation
  • National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, through funding provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Chesapeake Bay Program's Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction grants program
  • Prince Charitable Trusts
  • The Volgenau Foundation
  • Virginia Environmental Endowment

To support this Initiative, contact Jennifer Miller Herzog, Chesapeake Program Manager, or Suzanne Erera, Director of Foundation and Corporate Relations.

Get In Touch

For more information, please contact Jennifer Miller Herzog, Chesapeake program manager, by email or call 406-580-6410.