Conserving land is critical for the health of the watershed and is part of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Watershed Agreement. This Agreement, signed in 2014, strives to preserve 2 million acres by 2025. The goal is to conserve landscapes to maintain water quality and habitat; sustain forests, farms, and maritime communities; and conserve lands of cultural, indigenous, and community value. The protected lands indicator examines all valuable lands (which includes land to conserve for farms, forests, wildlife habitat, and cultural and natural heritage) and compares them to the land protected with the Chesapeake Conservation Partnership goal to protect 30% of the land by 2030. The data used was from 2018.
More information about this indicator is at Chesapeake Progress.
How is it measured?
Protected lands is measured by the area of land protected. Land can be protected by different groups such as federal, state, local, private, non-governmental organizations, native american, and other.
Threshold levels
The area of land protected is compared to the goal of all valuable lands to protect to reach 30% protection of lands in the watershed by 2030.