Partnership Coordinators, Joanna Ogburn and Emily Thorpe, address Envision the Choptank partners gathered at the Wharves of the Choptank Visitor & Heritage Center in Denton for the 4th Annual All Partner meeting.

In late September, more than 60 Envision the Choptank partners filled the Wharves of the Choptank Visitor & Heritage Center in Denton, Maryland for the 4th Annual All Partner Meeting. This year’s gathering included a celebration of progress made over the last year and an unveiling of the newly updated Common Agenda, a set of shared objectives and strategies organized under four main goal areas: conserve natural resources, restore habitat and clean water, engage communities, and strengthen and expand the partnership. Originally adopted in 2018, this updated Common Agenda will guide the partnership over the next five years.

During the meeting, partners discussed several new and improved strategies in the updated Agenda that Envision will pursue in the coming years to better incorporate climate resilience and equity across the work of the partnership. For the first time ever, this year’s All Partner Meeting also included a networking lunch and group paddle on the Choptank River. Read on for more information about how Envision plans to scale-up and sustain the progress of the partnership or click here for a full summary of this year’s All Partner meeting.

*Left: Envision partners discuss ideas for implementing new and improved Common Agenda strategies during breakout groups at this year’s All Partner Meeting.*
*Right: Envision partners paddle on the Choptank River near Martinak State Park.*

Climate Resilience

A major focus of updating the Choptank Common Agenda was to integrate building climate resilience into the work of the partnership. Climate change is increasingly recognized as a “threat multiplier,” with the potential to impact and exacerbate everything from water quality concerns to socioeconomic stability. In the Choptank watershed, climate change is expected to bring a host of challenges, including warmer temperatures, increased precipitation, higher-intensity storm events, rising sea levels, and increased flooding. Although the complexities of climate change make it difficult to anticipate its ultimate impact on water quality and underwater habitats, its consequences are already being felt by many of the human communities who live within the watershed. Partnerships like Envision the Choptank play a critical role in developing collaborative solutions to the complex challenges of climate change. Over the next 5 years, Envision intends to work towards increasing climate resiliency across the Choptank watershed through a variety of strategies, including those listed below.

Work with local government staff to understand and provide the tools and information that could better inform local planning and emergency management efforts related to natural resources and climate resilience.
Carry out large-scale, collaborative, multi-practice restoration projects in key locations to reconnect the ecosystem and support climate resilience.
Strengthen coordination and collaboration between education and restoration partners to better engage youth in building climate resilience.

Equity

This update of the Common Agenda also prioritized the partnership’s commitment to equity across all of its work. Strengthening one of its Core Principles to reflect this commitment, Envision will “ensure that diversity, equity, and inclusion are central to decision-making, project development, and implementation; and provide equal access to the decision-making process.” In the Choptank watershed, disenfranchised communities are typically disconnected from planning efforts, resources, and decision-making related to conservation and restoration and are often disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change. Although improvements are being made, funding accessibility challenges and often-restrictive grant requirements make it difficult for disenfranchised communities to access funding. In the coming years, Envision remains committed to ensuring that the resources of the collective restoration movement are shared more equitably and plans to build upon its existing efforts through the following strategies:

Share the resources of the restoration movement more equitably by engaging disenfranchised members of the farming community.
Increase dialogue and connection with disenfranchised communities to understand needs, share access to resources, and implement collaborative solutions.
Explore opportunities to convene stakeholders around developing a more diverse and climate-ready environmental workforce in the Choptank watershed.

Scaling-up & Sustaining the Progress of the Partnership

Through this update of the Common Agenda, the partnership also explored ways to grow and sustain the progress made since Envision’s inception in late 2015. In doing so, the partnership looked back at what elements led to Envision’s previous successes (see the All Partner Meeting Summary for recent highlights), identifying several key strengths that helped to scale-up the work of the partnership:

Building Relationships - Envision the Choptank builds relationships among local communities, practitioners, policymakers, and funders; increasing conversations and facilitating connections across stakeholder groups.
Breaking Barriers - Envision the Choptank works to break down long-standing barriers by identifying and researching the sources of problems and then engaging stakeholders in collaboratively developing solutions.
Adding Capacity - By coordinating collaborative funding proposals and developing and supporting new positions, Envision the Choptank helps to overcome the capacity challenges limiting the advancement of restoration efforts.
Creating Flexibility - Through its initiatives, Envision the Choptank works to build-in flexibility, enabling programs and projects to adapt and meet the needs of the stakeholders and communities engaged.

The partnership incorporated these strengths into the design of several new strategies geared towards growing and sustaining the work of the partnership and the progress achieved. These strategies include:

Explore funding mechanisms and capacity-building opportunities to support long-term maintenance of restoration projects.
Continue to explore different funding mechanisms and network structures to sustain the collaborative and continue to organize people around advancing shared goals and priorities.
Convene stakeholders and encourage dialogue with natural resource-based industries to share perspectives, build common ground, and address related challenges.
Develop relationships with additional sectors, to identify shared goals and partnership opportunities.

Over the next five years, Envision will work to carry out each of the strategies in the updated Common Agenda. Using its collaborative approach to planning and implementation, Envision will build capacity by joining forces and leveraging the skills and resources of its partners to carry out projects with great positive impact across the Choptank watershed.

Join Us!

Envision the Choptank partners welcome everyone to join in this collaborative endeavor. The initiative’s success will depend on the diversity of organizations and individuals engaged. Working together, we can deliver results that improve both the environmental and the socioeconomic health of the watershed, creating a swimmable, fishable Choptank for all.

To see more of Envision’s updated Common Agenda, visit our website!