The Clean Water Act requires each of the 28 congressionally designated National Estuary Programs to implement a Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan, or CCMP. The CCMP outlines priorities for activities, community engagement, monitoring, research, and funding to protect and restore these estuaries of national significance and their watersheds. It serves as a blueprint to guide future decisions and addresses a wide range of environmental issues, such as water quality, habitat protection and restoration.  

APNEPs 2025 CCMP was developed by staff under the direction of the Management Conference and regional partners to provide targeted guidance for the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership (APNEP) in understanding, protecting, and restoring the Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine system. It revises and updates the 2012 CCMP and covers a shorter management horizon. While minor changes were made to the narrative, substantive changes were made to the actions and objectives in the Action Plan section. Additionally, actions in the 2025 CCMP were reorganized under four categories: Understand, Protect & Restore, Engage, and Monitor.  

While this new CCMP continues to support ecosystem-based management (EBM) practices, the Partnership has adopted several focus areas and activities to guide implementation and maximize APNEP’s limited resources and large geographic area. APNEP will focus on these themes during the 2025 CCMP horizon: 

  • Water Quality
  • Submerged Aquatic Vegetation
  • Wetlands
  • Oyster Habitats
  • Community Resilience.  

The document remains organized by asking and then answering four basic questions: (1) what is a healthy Albemarle-Pamlico system, (2) what is the current condition of the system, (3) what are the most significant challenges facing the system over the next 5-10 years, and (4) what actions should be implemented to best achieve a healthy system? 

The three overarching goals established in 2012 remain to support achievement of the APNEP mission:

  • Goal 1: A region where human communities are sustained by a functioning ecosystem
  • Goal 2: A region where aquatic, wetland, and upland habitats support viable populations of native species
  • Goal 3: A region where water quantity and quality maintain ecological integrity

Much of APNEP’s work is achieved through collaborative partnerships and leveraged resources with others interested in environmental and natural resource management in the region. Many of the objectives and actions in the CCMP rely on involvement from key governmental, non-profit, and other partners. Partnership initiatives include protection and restoration efforts to improve water quality and habitats, identification of gaps in knowledge of the system, and engagement of the public to make connections between the natural environment and services provided by the system. 

Read the 2025 Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan

 

 

 

 

 

Off