Port Washington Watershed Biodiversity Coalition
Our Vision
A Port Washington Watershed where biodiversity is thriving and environmental education advances in step with science.
Our Mission
Protecting biodiversity and inspiring action through stewardship, education, and collaboration.
By the Numbers
1,000+ acres of diverse natural habitat managed
3 watersheds united: Manhasset Bay, Hempstead Harbor, and the Long Island Sound
Eleven local community-based organizations working together
1 growing movement for people and nature
Our Work
Protecting existing habitats
Restoring wetlands, meadows, riparian corridors, and shorelines
Connecting habitats through ecological corridors
Creating habitat for the imperiled Monarch Butterfly
Partnering with civic and community organizations
Engaging citizens in science and environmental education
Together, we’re shaping a healthier, more resilient future.
What is Biodiversity and why protect it?
Biodiversity is the variety of life — from entire ecosystems and species communities down to the genetic diversity within each species. This diversity enhances the resilience of the ecological systems that sustain us and allow ecosystems to adapt to a rapidly changing and uncertain future.
Protecting biodiversity means protecting ourselves. It’s what keeps our water clean, our food and medicine abundant, and our coastlines strong in the face of storms and sea-level rise. Biodiversity sustains the ecosystem services that make life possible — from pollination and pollution remediation to carbon storage and soil formation. It fuels discovery and education, inspiring scientific inquiry and hands-on learning for future generations. And it offers places for quiet contemplation and connection with nature, addressing nature deficitdisorder and enriching our physical, emotional, and cultural well-being.
Together, we’re shaping a healthier, more resilient future — for people, wildlife, and the land we share.
The Flagship Species that Connects Us:
The Monarch Butterfly
The Monarch butterfly serves as Port Washington’s flagship species, symbolizing the importance of protecting local wildlife and biodiversity. Iconic, emblematic, and universally recognizable, the Monarch connects residents across the watershed region—and indeed across North America—through its beauty, vulnerability, and remarkable migration.
In North America, the Monarch butterfly is also recognized as an umbrella species. By protecting and creating habitat for Monarchs, we simultaneously support a wide array of other pollinators, invertebrates, and birds that depend on the same host plants and ecosystems. In this way, every milkweed planted, and every native meadow restored, has ripple effects that extend far beyond a single species.
By planting milkweed, the Monarch’s sole host plant, residents and community organizations can directly support this imperiled species across its complex life cycle and continental migratory range. Scientists estimate that over one billion milkweed plants will be needed to sustain the population’s long-term health—a scale of restoration that underscores the importance of local action. As we often say: “If you plant it, they will come.”
The Monarch is also an ideal species for education and engagement, inspiring curiosity, wonder, and a deep connection to the natural world. Coalition members frequently raise Monarchs from eggs to adulthood, offering children and adults alike the chance to witness metamorphosis and migration firsthand. Following the example of Tanya Clusener, who has raised and released more than 10,000 Monarch butterflies since 2018, these hands-on experiences connect hearts and minds to the importance of biodiversity and stewardship.
The mystery of how Monarch butterflies find their way back to remote mountain sanctuaries in Mexico each year—where their great-great-grandparents departed some nine months earlier—remains one of nature’s most powerful illustrations. It reminds us of both the fragility of life and how little we truly understand about the living world that sustains us.
Monarch butterfly nectaring on butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa).
Fall colors at the Guggenheim Preserve, collecting milkweed seeds (Asclepias tuberosa), the Monarch butterfly host plant, from the Guggenheim Preserve. The Long Island Native Plant Initiative is propagating these seeds for planting across Long Island.
A Scientifically Informed Approach
The Port Washington Watershed Biodiversity Coalition is mapping habitats, conducting biodiversity assessments, and building a scientifically informed foundation for local conservation planning and action.
Researchers use habitat maps as a first step in assessing biodiversity—evaluating the places where biological communities live and interact with the physical landscape. The mosaic of a well-classified habitat map is one of the most effective tools we have for describing, understanding, and predicting patterns of biodiversity. Quality habitat maps help identify the locations of rare and sensitive species communities, which often play critical roles in maintaining ecosystem health and provide important educational and scientific value.
Knowledge of rare species—especially within lesser-known groups such as insects, fungi, and nematodes—is limited, making habitat-based fieldwork particularly valuable. These populations are typically studied through their affinity to specific habitat types and conditions, yet the lack of detailed habitat data remains one of the greatest obstacles to effective biodiversity assessment and conservation.
Our suite of maps directly addresses this need and includes:
Coalition Map (Interactive Link Here) — highlighting the network of community-based partner organizations across the Port Washington Peninsula.
Habitat Map (High-Resolution Link) — identifying and classifying the diversity of habitat types, including forests, meadows, wetlands, ponds, and coastal bluffs across the Port Washington Peninsula.
Wetland Map (High-Resolution Link) — illustrating the extent and ecological importance of freshwater and tidal wetlands within the watershed.
Watershed Map — delineating the three interlinked drainage basins of Manhasset Bay, Hempstead Harbor, and the Long Island Sound, showing their ecological connectivity and shared challenges.
Together, these maps define our study area and guide a science-based approach to biodiversity assessment, restoration prioritization, and environmental education. They form the foundation for a forthcoming Biodiversity Assessment and Biodiversity Action Plan—a long-term framework to protect and restore ecological integrity throughout the watershed.
By combining habitat mapping, citizen science, and coalition collaboration, we align local stewardship with regional and state conservation goals—ensuring that biodiversity restoration is both community-driven and data-informed.
The Guggenheim Preserve, one of our watershed’s largest meadow habitats, displaying butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa) in vibrant summer colors.
Our Watershed Approach to Conservation and Collaboration
A watershed is nature’s way of organizing the landscape — it’s the area of land where water from rain, snow, and groundwater all drains to a common destination — in this case, the Long Island Sound. Manhasset Bay and Hempstead Harbor are subwatersheds that are delinated by the smaller geographic areas that they drain; this includes Port Washington, Manhasset, Roslyn and other geographic areas. The Port Washington peninsula is uniquely part of all three of these watersheds.
Port Washington’s Watershed is an important ecological and hydrogeographic region of the North Shore of Long Island. The land, subwatersheds, and Long Island Sound form a hydrological system that feeds and connects upland, coastal, and marine life. These semi-enclosed watersheds are complex and exchange nutrients, oxygen, and pollutants. (See below for a map of our Coalition’s Watershed).
Coalition-led projects focus on uplands, coasts, marine nurseries and habitats, and their interconnectivity — from maritime bluff stabilization at Sands Point Preserve, to extensive oyster reef restoration with the Billion Oyster Project across Manhasset Bay. The Coalition is working to study and reduce pollution, enhance water quality, and improve the ecological health of these watersheds. This enduring connection between humans, land, and sea is at the foundation of our mission: to protect biodiversity, ecologically connectivity, and foster resilience through stewardship, education, and collaboration.