The Trustees of Reservations has been awarded Priority Project designation status from the Baker-Polito Administration’s Department of Fish and Game, Division of Ecological Restoration (DER) for an innovative salt marsh restoration project in the Great Marsh on the North Shore of Massachusetts.
Titled “ Saving the Great Marsh: Ditch Remediation, Habitat Preservation and Resiliency Building at the Landscape Scale ,” the project seeks to bring together multiple stakeholders to pilot innovative methods for restoring saltmarsh habitat in the face of sea level rise at its Old Town Hill Reservation in Newbury, as well as two additional Trustees sites located in the Great Marsh in Essex and Ipswich.
The goal of the restoration is to fortify over 300 acres that serve as a key environmental buffer, protecting the neighboring communities and precious habitat.
Last summer, The Trustees was awarded a MassBays grant to support the critical first phase of this long term ditch remediation project to restore salt marsh in the Parker River Estuary, targeting 85 acres of salt marsh at Old Town Hill Reservation.
The Great Marsh is the largest salt marsh ecosystem north of New York and spans more than 20,000 acres from Cape Ann to the New Hampshire border.
According to the Trustees, this salt marsh restoration project is initially estimated to take three to five years to complete.