Principles

The Chesapeake Bay Program and its partners will:

• Collaborate to achieve the goals and outcomes of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement.
• Seek consensus when making decisions.
• Adaptively manage to foster continuous improvement.
• Achieve goals and outcomes in a timely way and at the least possible cost to citizens.
• Operate with transparency in our decisions, policies, actions and progress reporting to strengthen public confidence in our work.
• Fairly and effectively represent the interests of people throughout the watershed, including a broad and diverse range of cultures, demographics and ages.
• Acknowledge, support and embrace local governments and other local entities in conservation and restoration activities.
• Engage citizens to increase the number and diversity of people who support and carry out conservation and restoration activities.
• Promote environmental justice through the meaningful involvement and fair treatment of all people, regardless of race, color, national origin or income, in the implementation of this agreement.
• Use science-based decision-making and innovative technologies and approaches to support sound management decisions in a changing ecosystem.
• Maintain a coordinated, watershed-wide monitoring and research program to support decision-making, track progress and gauge the effectiveness of management actions.
• Use place-based approaches, where appropriate, to produce recognizable benefits in local communities while contributing to larger ecosystem goals.
• Explore using social science to better understand and measure how human behavior can drive natural resource use, management and decision-making.
• Anticipate changing environmental conditions, including long-term trends in temperature, precipitation, sea level, land use and other variables.