The National Habitat Program

 

 

 

 

Mission
The National Habitat Program strives to protect, Conserve, restore, and create habitats and ecosystems vital to self-sustaining populations of living marine resources under NOAA Fisheries stewardship.

Vision
Healthy resources require viable habitat. The NOAA Fisheries envisions healthy, self-sustaining habitat for living marine resources. This vision requires expanded efforts to protect, conserve, restore, and create habitats and associated ecosystems. Success will increase habitat quality and quantity, with benefits to resources and constituents. National Habitat Program priorities reflect agency priorities related to riverine, estuarine, coastal, and oceanic habitats that are essential for anadromous and marine species.

 Strategic Outcomes

• Protect and conserve habitats from human-induced degradation.
• Restore degraded habitats.
• Create habitats to sustain higher resource productivity.

 

The National Habitat Plan Will

• Implement a common agency vision of achieving national living marine resource management objectives, and translate that vision into agency resource allocations.
• Coordinate environmental research and management to address key habitat issues in riverine, estuarine, coastal, and oceanic areas.
• Emphasize proactive approaches with benefits to living marine resources and their habitat, including an increased connection with fishery and protected species management.
• Pursue interagency and public-private partnerships to leverage technical capabilities and fiscal resources, resulting in increased effectiveness.
• Fully implement the new "essential fish habitat" provision of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to increase fish productivity for the benefit of the Nation.

• Develop scientific and management capabilities to expand agency initiatives into cumulative, secondary, and indirect impacts within an ecosystem (or watershed/drainage basin) context.
• Establish effective lines of communication with constituents to learn about their efforts and to discuss the NOAA Fisheries mission, vision, strategic goals, priorities, and progress.

 

The National Habitat Plan

The four major Plan elements are described on the following pages. The description for each element includes examples of recent successes and highlights of future plans.

 Together, the successes reiterate the historic strength of the National Habitat Program while our plans reflect new priorities. Readers may request the full document for further details.
 
 

• Protect and Conserve

Assess human-induced impacts at levels ranging from sites to ecosystems, provide scientifically based advice to reduce or eliminate those impacts, and form partnerships to protect and conserve habitats of living marine resources. Track natural habitat trends for perspective and to assess progress.

• Restore and Create
  
  Restore and create habitat, thereby reversing the net loss occurring from continued growth and development or resulting from natural events.
   
   
• Understand
  Obtain, interpret, and share scientific information needed to manage important habitats, increase awareness of habitat values, and enhance the agency's role.
   
   
• Operate
  
  Support those actions by developing agency policies, pursuing partnership agreements, leveraging funds, sharing staff, and other creative solutions that improve effectiveness and efficiency.
   
   
  
  

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