As you likely know, April 22nd every year is Earth Day, a day to celebrate environmental protection and take action in your community to steward your local environment. Here in New England, Earth Day usually coincides with the very start of spring, when this season’s growth is just emerging. It’s also a great time to do some spring cleaning after a long winter, which is why we love to see the many community clean ups happening around the North Shore around Earth Day, including ours happening May 2nd around the River in downtown Ipswich! These clean ups are just one example of the collective actions we can all take to make our world a little better and our watershed a little bit healthier.
At Ipswich River Watershed Association (IRWA), we spark and channel the power of our entire watershed community to create positive change for our River and our community. Sometimes success means celebrating tangible accomplishments like picking up 700 pounds of trash from the riverbed. But often, success looks like helping a local resident take the lead on a project, finding funding for a town to move a project forward, or educating both kids and adults so that their actions impact our watershed for years to come. While it’s hard to measure collective action, it’s at the heart of everything we do.
Here are a few examples of collective actions last year that you might have missed:
- We brought together restoration and climate professionals through the PIE-Rivers Partnership, connecting 21 organizations and 600 individuals and creating collaboration opportunities. When everyone works together on projects across the region, we get more done and faster!
- We provided subject-matter expertise to Conservation Commissions and Planning Boards in Lynnfield, Wilmington, Middleton, and Boxford on projects that could impact the river. Many important decisions affecting our river are made by dedicated volunteers on planning boards, conservation committees, and other town groups. We provide these volunteers information on the potential impacts of projects on the River, offer suggestions on how to reduce any negative impacts, and connect local residents with the right resources so they can weigh in during the decision-making process.
- We worked with the Town of Ipswich to fully permit and fund the stream crossing at Old Essex Road – the first “coastal retreat” project in the Great Marsh to remove outdated infrastructure and make room for the environment to adjust to sea level rise. There are years of behind-the-scenes work to get restoration projects like this ready for construction, or in this case, deconstruction.
Through collaboration, education, and resource-sharing, we help towns, organizations, and citizens realize their full watershed protection potential. At IRWA, we believe that when we work together, we can accomplish so much more than we could on our own.
Thank you for being part of this important mission!