STORIES FROM THE COAST
OCRM's investments in the coasts make a difference to real people in real places. These are just some of the stories from the coast that show how OCRM investments help the nation's coastal communities, economies, and ecosystems thrive.
RESTORING OYSTERS AND ECONOMIES COAST-TO-COAST
Human activities have negatively impacted many commercial marine fisheries. Communities are looking to improve their local economies through the restoration of commercially harvestable species to the habitats they once occupied. The Virgina Coastal Zone Management Program and the South Slough, San Francisco Bay and the Elkhorn Slough NERRs have helped to create successful fisheries restoration and management systems through sustained leadership, investment, and the promotion of progressive management techniques and how coordinated and comprehensive coastal planning can lead to significant economic benefits.
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PADDLING IN ROOKERY BAY, FLORIDA
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, in partnership with Collier County, recently celebrated the opening of the Isles of Capri Paddlecraft Park within the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. The 10-acre park provides continued preservation and protection of Florida's natural resources and serves as the county's first public access paddle craft launch.
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KEEPING FISHING IN THE FAMILY -
MT DESERT, MAINE
Maine watermen have been supplying seafood to America for generations. But development on the Maine coast is making it harder and harder to earn a living on the Maine waterfront. A state program helped with funding from the Maine Coastal Program is doing something about that. Thanks to Maine's Working Waterfront Access Pilot Program, four-year-old Ryan Davis of Mt. Desert Island, may be the fifth generation of Davises to earn a living as a Maine waterman.
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HIGH TECH HOBBY SHEDS LIGHT ON PREHISTORIC CREATURE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
After a summer of tromping around in the mudflats of New Hampshire's Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve to study feeding pits dug by horseshoe crabs, Fellow Wan-Jean Lee realized that her own feet were getting in the way of her research. A chance encounter with another marine ecologist whose hobby is remote control airplanes helped Lee solve her footstep dilemma and led to a novel way to show the importance of the Great Bay estuary to the horseshoe crab.
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PRESERVING AN ANCIENT COASTAL FLYWAY ON THE EASTERN SHORE OF VIRGINIA
When a landowner on a Virginia peninsula decided to sell his property, people worried that songbirds that landed there to replenish during their long migrations to South America would lose critical habitat. Instead, CZM funding helped set into motion a venture that would permanently protect the land, for wildlife and people, and launch an ecotourism industry.
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