Coastal Habitat Protection Plan approved in Dec. 2004

As part of the Fisheries Reform Act of 1997, the N.C. General Assembly required the Coastal Resources, Marine Fisheries and Environmental Management commissions to approve plans to help protect and restore resources critical to North Carolina's commercial and recreational fisheries. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has spent the past few years developing the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan (CHPP), which must protect habitats including wetlands, spawning areas, threatened and endangered species habitat, primary and secondary nursery areas, shellfish beds, submerged aquatic vegetation and Outstanding Resource Waters.

The three commissions officially approved the CHPP in December 2004.

CHPP recommendations fall under four broad goals:
• Improve the effectiveness of existing rules and programs protecting coastal fish habitats.
• Identify, designate and protect Strategic Habitat Areas.
• Enhance and protect habitats from physical impacts.
• Enhance and protect water quality.

The three commissions will spend the first six months of 2005 developing plans for implementing the CHPP. Any actions that require rulemaking will go through the appropriate commission’s normal rulemaking process.

The law directs the three commissions to adopt rules to implement the CHPP. They also must ensure to the maximum extent practicable that, in carrying out their powers and duties, they act in a manner consistent with the adopted plans.

The draft plan covers 11 regional units based on the Division of Water Quality's eight coastal river basins: coastal ocean, Chowan River, Southern estuaries, Tar-Pamlico River, Roanoke River, New/White Oak rivers, Albemarle Sound, Core/Bogue sounds, Neuse River, Pamlico Sound and Cape Fear River. Each component includes habitat mapping, status and trends, threats, and a cumulative impact analysis. The plan also recommends research needs and management actions that state regulatory agencies need to take to protect and restore habitat.

The CHPP contains information designed to clarify the habitat functions necessary for production of important fish stocks and the links between those habitats and fishes at various life history stages of the fish. The document also contains information about the various types of threats to the habitats and water quality that productive fisheries depend on. And it summarizes the legal and institutional structures for management of fisheries habitat, water quality, and fisheries in eastern North Carolina.

In Summer 2003, DENR produced a brochure and tabloid to provide more information about CHPP (both in PDF format; require Adobe Acrobat Reader to view). The final version of the plan is now available. An updated tabloid has also been created to provide more information about the plan.

For information about the CHPP, contact Mike Street with the Division of Marine Fisheries at 252-726-7021 or 1-800-682-2632.

Learn more about the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan.