Publications

This is the workgroup's workplan for 2024-2025. This two-year workplan was presented to the CBP Management Board on December 14, 2023 as part of the Strategic Review System process. This document was later updated on April 15, 2024.

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Managers are making tremendous progress identifying and tackling environmental issues facing the Chesapeake Bay. However, many of the remaining challenges to a healthier ecosystem are complex, diffuse, and directly in the hands of citizens, including energy use, automobile emissions, and urban and suburban runoff. These issues force individuals, businesses, and communities to make hard decisions, and require a thoughtful public engagement strategy that begins in the schools with our youngest citizens.

The Mid Atlantic Elementary and Secondary Environmental Literacy Strategy draws on the full strength of the federal government to support state efforts to transform their schools to provide the next generation of citizen stewards the knowledge and skills they need to make informed environmental decisions.

It builds upon the long history of federal-state cooperation of the Chesapeake Bay Program to create a model that showcases how the federal government can support and influence sophisticated state environmental education efforts, which is important because of the highly localized nature of pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade (PK-12) education.

The strategy calls upon federal, state, and nongovernmental partners to advance shared priorities in four key areas—students, educators, schools, and the environmental education community. Together, these partners have the vision, expertise, and resources to create and support schools that foster citizen stewardship and graduate environmentally literate students.

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The goal of the Chesapeake Bay Summer Flounder Management Plan is to enhance and perpetuate summer flounder stocks in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, and throughout their Atlantic coast range, so as to generate optimum long-term ecological, social and economic benefits from their commercial and recreational harvest and utilization over time.

A report on the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Coast King and Spanish Mackerel Fishery Management Plan.

The goal of the Horseshoe Crab Fishery Management Plan is to protect the horseshoe crab resource in the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Coast to ensure its continued role in the ecology of coastal ecosystems, while providing the opportunity for commercial, recreational and medical usage over time.

The goal of the Chesapeake Bay Atlantic Croaker and spot Management Plan is to protect the croaker and spot resource in the Chesapeake Bay, its tributaries, and coastal waters, while providing the greatest long-term ecological, social and economic benefits from their usage over time.

The goal of the Chesapeake Bay Weakfish and Spotted Seatrout Management Plan is to enhance and perpetuate weakfish and spotted seatrout stocks in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, and throughout their Atlantic coast range, so as to generate optimum long-term ecological, social and economic benefits from their commercial and recreational harvest and utilization over time.

The goal of the Chesapeake Bay Eel Management Plan is to manage the American eel harvest in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries so that harvest does not exceed the reproductive capacity of the population to maintain its size from year to year.

Stock assessment results indicate that black sea bass are overharvested. The goal of the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Coast Black Sea Fishery Management Plan (FMP) is to

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This document is available electronically only. The Plan will guide the protection and restoration of native waterfowl species using the Chesapeake Bay, its tidal tributaries, and adjacent uplands. The Plan emphasizes the protection and restoration of habitats on which these species depend.

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