A few weeks back, I found myself among a handful of tourists sitting on a sailboat off the coast of Key West in Florida, cheerfully listening to the captain give a spiel about mangroves.

It had been a splendid trip so far—sunny skies and weather drifting around 75 degrees, quirky restaurants serving fresh flounder, swordfish, and shrimp, and sunset parties where tourists gathered to watch the last drop of sun slip past a boat-laden horizon. But as someone who works in communications, where my job can be boiled down to making people care more about the Chesapeake Bay, this little lesson on marine ecology, delivered by a weather-beaten boat captain no less, was no doubt the highlight of my trip.

A sailboat in front of an ocean sunset

The sun dips below the horizon in Key West, Florida. (Photo by Lars Knudsen)

As the captain explained, mangroves are tropical trees that grow out in coastal areas, where they provide a variety of benefits to wildlife and humans. In the Keys, mangroves serve as nursery grounds for fish that we end up eating, or food for larger species that anglers dream of catching. Because mangroves grow in dense clusters out in the water, they also slow down wave energy during storms, which reduces flooding on the land and the erosion of shoreline. Mangroves absorb nutrient runoff through their roots which can keep low-oxygen dead zones from forming. In the words of the sailboat captain, mangroves are also “giant lungs” that soak up carbon, thereby slowing climate change.

If the captain had stopped there, I would’ve gone home happy. But he took things to another level by sharing a story about how in 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt showed up to Key West to conserve 375 square miles of islands and mangroves for the Key West National Wildlife Refuge. This act of conservation meant that more than 100 years later, the mangroves we sailed around were still federally protected. Without them, the fish population around Key West would almost certainly be lower, erosion would be more severe, and the water quality would be worse.

Mangrove tree roots under clear water

With an estimated flood protection value of $50 billion, Florida’s mangroves also provide wildlife habitat, climate change mitigation, and coastal erosion reduction. (Photo by Ralph Pace)

A form of the sail boat captain’s spiel was repeated during the many outings I had in the Keys (my wife and I are suckers for touristy things) including a guided kayak tour, a sunset cruise, and a boating trip to find dolphins and manatees. Naturally, this got me thinking about how educational moments such as these occur on the Chesapeake Bay. While the Bay doesn’t have mangroves, it does have wetlands, underwater grass, and oyster reefs, which provide the exact same kinds of benefits to water quality, erosion protection, and wildlife as mangroves do. The Bay also has sailboat cruises, kayak tours and paddle boarding led by tour guides who are ideal emissaries for messages around conservation.

A small group of fish swimming through underwater grass

Mummichogs swim through sago pondweed, a species of bay grass, also known as submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), growing in the Severn River in Anne Arundel County, Md., on July 9, 2024. (Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

Bay advocates have long championed the idea that tourism and conservation go hand-in-hand. In the 1987 Chesapeake Bay Agreement, signatories agreed to improve and maintain access to the Bay, improve opportunities for recreational and commercial fishing, and secure shoreline acreage to maintain open space, among other commitments related to public access. In the most recent Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, partners set a goal of opening up 300 new public access sites, including boat ramps, soft launches, and fishing areas by 2025. So far, 285 new sites have been opened putting the partnership 15 sites away from their 2025 goal!

A survey conducted by the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Public Access Workgroup in 2022 shows that increasing public access can inspire people to support Bay conservation. According to the survey, 45% of residents who visit a public access site at least once a week strongly agreed with the statement “I want to do more to help make local creeks, rivers and lakes healthier,” and 21% somewhat agreed. For those who visit a public access site only a few times a year, 20% strongly agreed with the statement and 45% somewhat agreed. In addition, 61% of respondents agreed that “Being near or on the water makes me want to do more things to protect it.”

A wide landscape of a grassy wetland

Wetlands are seen at the Karen Noonan Center in Crocheron, Md., in remote Southern Dorchester County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore on Aug. 4, 2017. (Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

So, if we want public buy-in for Bay conservation, we should continue to make the Bay a place people want to visit and enjoy. But we should also look for ways to remind people who are fishing, boating, or having a crab feast that all this wouldn’t be possible without the conservation and ongoing restoration of wetlands, oyster reefs, and underwater grass.

I dream of a world where we can buy Bay grass merchandise, where charter boat captains promote oyster reef restoration, where menus at seafood restaurants have a little note at the bottom about the importance of wetlands, right next to the asterisk regarding gluten.

A large bird standing on an oyster reef

A great blue heron visits an oyster reef exposed at low tide on the Lynnhaven River on Nov. 15, 2016 (Photo by Leslie Boorhem-Stephenson/Chesapeake Bay Program)

It’s easy to get people to care about blue crabs, brook trout, and bald eagles. My hope is that people can also find compassion for the habitats that sustain them.

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