Port Washington Watershed Biodiversity Coalition
Our Vision
A resilient Port Washington watershed where biodiversity thrives, habitats are connected, and communities are engaged in stewardship and environmental learning.
Our Mission
Protecting and restoring biodiversity through stewardship, science, education, and collaboration.
By the Numbers
Ten local community-based stewardship organizations collaborating across the PW watershed
Three interconnected watersheds: Manhasset Bay, Hempstead Harbor, and the Long Island Sound
Three municipalities: Port Washington, Manhasset, and Roslyn
A Science Advisory Committee conducting research and informing conservation action
1,000+ acres of diverse natural habitats stewarded
Over one mile of natural coastline stewarded
13,000 acres of habitat mapped
2,500+ wildlife species documente
Our Work
Supporting Thriving Habitats, Abundant Wildlife, and Biodiversity
Protecting habitats by promoting ecologically responsible land-use practices, supporting the establishment of new habitats, and setting aside land to remain free from development and human disturbance.
Strengthening ecological connectivity by establishing habitat stepping stones and pollinator pathways between existing natural areas.
Restoring degraded habitats through targeted invasive-species management, reducing pollution, and protecting hydrological systems.
Maintaining and establishing meadows through prescribed mowing to sustain and enhance this regionally rare habitat.
Enhancing wetlands, riparian habitat, and waterbody health by establishing native emergent vegetation and adjacent habitat buffers.
Advancing coastal habitat resilience through living shoreline approaches such as oyster gardening, which reduce erosion, enhance intertidal and nearshore habitats, improve water quality, and support natural coastal processes.
Science & Conservation Planning
The PWWBC Science Advisory Committee provides scientific expertise to conduct research and inform conservation action
Conducting biodiversity assessments to document species, habitats, and ecological processes across the watershed to identify conservation priorities and inform science-based stewardship, restoration, and long-term management.
Conducting biodiversity surveys and BioBlitzes to document species diversity, species of conservation concern, and to engage community scientists and contribute data to long-term biodiversity assessments and conservation planning.
Providing science-based guidance and best management practices to inform biodiversity conservation, habitat restoration, stewardship, and watershed resilience efforts.
Education & Community Stewardship
Creating new habitats adjacent to existing ones to strengthen ecological connectivity and increase shared habitat value.
Coordinating science-based biodiversity conservation initiatives across local golf courses within the Port Washington Watershed.
Supporting the collection and propagation of locally sourced native plants and seeds for habitat restoration and enhancement.
Supporting youth stewardship by enabling young people to take responsibility for local conservation projects and environmental practices
Hosting presentations and panel discussions about our watershed’s diverse wildlife and habitats
This interactive map illustrates the geography of the Port Washington Watershed Biodiversity Coalition (PWWBC), an alliance of ten organizations stewarding habitats across the Port Washington watershed system, including the Manhasset Bay and Hempstead Harbor watersheds.
Habitat Map of the Port Washington Watershed (including portions of Roslyn and Manhasset).
Prepared by David Jakim (2013) using remote sensing and field verification. More extensive mapping of the watershed is planned. Click the map to view a zoomable, high-resolution version.
East Creek Estuary and Salt Marshes flowing into the Long Island Sound, Port Washington
Biodiversity, or biological diversity, is the variety of life on Earth. It encompasses diverse biological communities, the species that comprise those communities, the populations within each species, and the genetic diversity of individuals organisms. The Port Washington Watershed’s varied habitat types support a great diversity of ecological communities each with diverse species assemblages, including many that are federally and New York listed as rare, threatened, or endangered species. To date, well over 2,500 species of plants, fungi, and animals have been documented within the watershed, with many additional species present but not yet identified or recorded.
Biodiversity is important because it provides essential ecosystem services — it plays a critical role in mitigating pollution, improving water quality, building and maintaining healthy soils, and sequestering carbon. It also helps regulate disease dynamics by influencing the abundance and distribution of disease vectors. For example, when a single population increases unchecked, like white-tailed deer, it can lead to the spread of diseases such as Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted fever that impact human health.
Biodiversity further enhances the resilience of ecological communities and coastal ecosystems that are increasingly vulnerable to climate change that is driving sea-level rise and an increased frequency and intensity of severe weather events such as storms and droughts. Diverse, well-functioning ecosystems help buffer the impacts of sea-level rise, severe storms, intense rainfall events, flooding, and droughts by stabilizing soils and shorelines, dissipating wave energy, moderating healthy hydrological systems, and supporting adaptive ecological responses to stressors and disasters.
In addition to these ecological benefits, biodiversity provides direct benefits to humans — it enriches the scenic character and aesthetic quality of the watershed, expands opportunities for meaningful experiences in nature, and supports environmental education and community well-being.
The Coalition affirms that each species within the watershed has intrinsic value, and that biological diversity is inherently meaningful and worthy of care. This connection between biodiversity and people is especially evident in community-driven initiatives such as ReWild Long Island (whose mission lays in encouraging native plantings, which then support native wildlife) and in access to high quality natural areas — including Baxter’s Pond Preserve, Manorhaven Preserve, and the Guggenheim Preserve — which, despite their modest size, place diverse plant and animal communities within daily reach of residents.
What is Biodiversity and Why Is It Important?
Wildlife of the Port Washington Watershed, including species of conservation concern, flagship species, and commonly encountered native fauna. This includes the endangered piping plover (Charadrius melodus), osprey (Pandion haliaetus), diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin), and river otter (Lontra canadensis), depicted left. Red fox (Vulpes vulpes), white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), raccoon (Procyon lotor), great blue heron (Ardea herodias), and eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina) (right).
A Watershed Approach to Collaboration
A watershed is an area of land where all the water — rain, snow, groundwater, and streams — flows down-gradient into the same place, such as the watersheds of Manhasset Bay and Hempstead Harbor, which in turn drain into the Long Island Sound. Surface waters and groundwater connect people, wildlife corridors, neighborhoods, parks, preserves, golf courses, roads, coastlines, and marine habitats into interconnected ecosystems. Healthy watersheds play a critical role in protecting water quality, reducing flooding, recharging groundwater, and supporting biodiversity. Maintaining the connectivity of freshwater, terrestrial, and marine environments is of critical importance to the overall health of local ecosystems. The Port Washington watershed — defined by land, people, and the flow of water — provides a natural geographic unit for stewardship across Port Washington, Manhasset, Plandome, Roslyn, and adjacent communities (see watershed map, right).
The Coalition tackles watershed-level land-use changes that integrally impact both biodiversity as well as the health and quality of hydrological systems that govern the quality, quantity, timing, and movement of water across the region and into the Long Island Sound. Biodiversity enhances the ability of ecosystems to slow water runoff and flooding, filter pollutants, stabilize soils, and serve as habitats and nurseries for aquatic and marine life. When these systems are degraded or disconnected, water quality declines, flooding risks increase, and both human and ecological communities become more vulnerable.
Coastal disaster resilience is one of the most pressing issues in the Port Washington watershed. Up to 1.5 feet of sea-level rise is projected by 2050 and as much as 7 feet by 2100 (NOAA, 2023). Hurricane Sandy resulted in a storm surge of as much as 9 feet above mean high-high water level and these flood events are expected to become more frequent and more severe with climate change.
To help tackle these problems, the Coalition is coordinating with the Long Island Sound Partnership’s work groups including Sustainable and Resilient Communities, Thriving Habitats and Abundant Wildlife, and the Community Advisory Council. The Coalition is working with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) to develop a pilot project using locally sourced kelp as a soil amendment to fertilize golf courses, thereby reducing nutrient loading from golf courses into Manhasset Bay. In addition, Transition Town Port Washington is oyster gardening in Manhasset Bay with the Billion Oyster Project (see Transition Town Port Washington’s Oyster Initiative Here).
Conserving the Flagship and Umbrella Species that Connects Us:
The Monarch Butterfly
The Monarch is an ideal species for environmental education and engagement with the living world—inviting curiosity, wonder, and mystery. The Monarch butterfly connects us all; it traverses and cross-pollinates all eight of the Coalition’s stewardship sites, as well as other natural habitats including meadows, forest edges, roadsides, and home gardens. The Port Washington Monarch Alliance was founded in 2017 as ReWild Long Island’s community outreach and education wing.
Every year, Monarchs migrate from Mexico to as far as Canada —- a four generation journey—always with the overwintering population returning to the very same and remote oyamel fir forests where their great-great-grandparents departed nine months earlier confounds scientists and laypersons alike. The Monarch remains one of nature’s most powerful reminders of both the fragility of life and how little we truly understand about the living world.
Monarch butterflies are threatened by climate change and the widespread loss of habitat, especially in the Midwest due to modern agricultural land-use practices. Monarch populations have declined by approximately 80% from their peak in 1996. Biologists have determined that there is a strong possibility that this species, given its tumultuous population crashes and rebounds, could become extinct in the coming decades unless action is taken. We can help reverse this trend by planting milkweed and establishing Monarch Waystations. Monarch Waystations are sites containing nectar-producing plants and, crucially, milkweed (Asclepias spp.), which is the only genus of host plants on which Monarchs will lay their eggs and that supports the Monarch’s complete life cycle from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to adult. Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa) is displayed on the right both in flowers and in the Guggenheim meadow.
The Monarch is a strategic umbrella species in that rallying behind and creating habitat for Monarch butterflies is also habitat that supports an umbrella of a great diversity and abundance of other wildlife. Milkweed plants are the documented larval host plants for six additional species of butterflies and moths, at least fourteen other dependent invertebrate herbivores, that are predated by over a dozen invertebrate species. In addition, roughly fifteen birds have been reported to use milkweed plants for catching insects and to use milkweed fibers for their nests. Other local umbrella species that our community supports rallying behind include the Eastern box turtle, mole salamanders, the wood frog, diamondback terrapin, the Eastern coyote, the Great Horned Owl, and the Osprey.
Monarch butterfly and bee nectaring on butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa)
Guggenheim Preserve full of butterflyweed in August, 2019, Port Washington
Recent Panel Discussions and Presentations
A Port Washington Biodiversity Coalition Panel Discussion Moderated by Transition Town Port Washington 501(c)(3)
Hempstead Harbor Woods - Port Washington’s Least Known Treasure, by David Jakim
Dream it
Dream it
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