The Great Bay Partnership’s conservation work is guided by five primary goals:

Goal 1. Migratory Bird Populations
To maintain or improve current distributions of waterfowl and other migratory bird populations, and to help maintain optimum population levels, distributions, and patterns of migration.

Goal 2. Wetland Ecosystems and Significant Habitats
To protect, enhance, restore, and manage an appropriate distribution and diversity of wetland ecosystems and other habitats essential and significant for migratory birds, fish, shellfish and other wildlife.

Goal 3.Exemplary Natural Communities and Habitats
To protect, enhance, restore, and mange exemplary natural and characteristic natural communities and habitats for rare, threatened, and endangered species of animals, plants, and natural communities.

Goal 4.  Recreational and Educational Opportunities
To protect natural areas that are important for aesthetic purposes and provide for quality public recreational and educational opportunities that are compatible with the waterfowl and wildlife resources and their management, and rare, threatened and endangered species and natural communities and their protection.

Goal 5: Landscape Management
To manage the project area from a landscape perspective that respects the integrity of the entire ecosystem.

About the Great Bay
New Hampshire’s Great Bay is widely recognized as an estuarine ecosystem of local, regional, and national significance, and has been a focus of New Hampshire’s planning and management since the 1940s. The Great Bay estuary, formed by the outflow of five rivers, is part of the Great Bay watershed and encompasses 9 percent of the land area of the state of New Hampshire. The Great Bay estuary sits at the confluence of approximately 930 square miles of major watersheds in Maine and New Hampshire brings a tidal flush of salt water from the Atlantic Ocean, nearly five miles east of the estuary itself. The inland location of the estuary makes it unique among northeastern seaboard estuaries, both in terms of ecosystem and species assemblages, as well as human pressures and threats to its natural features.

The rivers flowing into Great Bay cause the mixing of fresh and salt water that provides the rich aquatic wildlife habitats and unusual biodiversity supporting more than 150 rare species and 55 exemplary natural communities and ecosystems. The Great Bay estuary supports healthy salt and brackish marsh, intact eelgrass beds, substantial mud flats, and other subtidal features. These habitats provide feeding, breeding, and nursery grounds for a variety of finfish, oysters, shellfish, waterfowl, wading birds, and shorebirds. Historically the rivers feeding Great Bay supported several diadramous fish species (which spend part of their life cycles in both fresh and saltwater), freshwater wetlands and associated upland habitats.

The Great Bay area, with its tidal and freshwater wetland systems, is the most important waterfowl breeding, migrating, and wintering area in the state. The 2006 coastal waterfowl count found 6,992 birds with Great Bay wintering 83 percent of the birds (MWS 2006). The Great Bay area is a critical stopover point for more than 20 species of migratory waterfowl and is a nesting site for at least six waterfowl species. In addition, at least 27 species of shorebirds and 13 species of wading birds use the Great Bay estuary for feeding, resting, and nesting (Stevens and Anderson 1997).

International Waterfowl Planning & the Great Bay Focus Area
The Great Bay Partnership’s formation in 1994 originated from the approval of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan by the United States, Canada, Mexico (1986). The national plan provided the impetus for the protection of wetlands and adjacent upland habitats critical to North American waterfowl by designating priority habitat areas to target protection efforts. The North American Waterfowl Management Plan identified the Atlantic Coast Joint Venture flyway, stretching from Maine to Florida. Due to abundant wetlands and associated uplands, the Great Bay Focus Area is designated as providing critical waterfowl wintering, migration and production habitat.

Partnerships & Funding Opportunities
The Great Bay Partnership received its first successful North American Wetland Conservation Act (NAWCA) grant in 1995, and in 1996 the Partnership purchased its first conservation property, 176 acres near Crommet Creek in Durham. The success of a partnership approach was demonstrated. The Great Bay Partnership has continued conservation efforts in the Great Bay Focus Area with assistance from several successful NAWCA grants, funds from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other funding sources.