Southern Maryland Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge
On December 13, 2024, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams joined partners and community members in Nanjemoy, Maryland, to celebrate the establishment of the Southern Maryland Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge (SMW NWR) as the 573rd and newest unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System.
Nearly 15 years in the making, this is the first national wildlife refuge established in the Chesapeake Bay watershed in more than 25 years and the first in Maryland in over 60 years.
Chesapeake Conservancy is proud to be a contributing partner in creating the SMW NWR. The Service worked closely with the Southern Maryland Conservation Alliance, comprised of core member organizations including the Chesapeake Conservancy, American Chestnut Land Trust, Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Maryland Environmental Trust, Charles County and The Nature Conservancy to establish priorities for habitat management and land acquisition for the new refuge.
Photo by Sue Buyaskas.
A 31-acre parcel near Nanjemoy in Charles County, Maryland, is the first of several intended donations by The Nature Conservancy that over the next few months will permanently protect and conserve more than 300 acres of interior forest and riparian wetlands habitat, supporting northern long-eared bats, forest-interior songbirds, box turtles and several species of salamanders that are of conservation concern.
The Service will continue working with partners and willing sellers to secure voluntary conservation of up to 40,000 acres of important wildlife habitat within four watershed-based focus areas in Anne Arundel, Prince George’s, Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties. As proposed, the new refuge will consist of four watershed-based units: the Lower Patuxent-Calvert Unit, Nanjemoy-Mattawoman Unit, Zekiah–Wicomico Unit and McIntosh Run-St. Mary’s Unit. The acquisition boundary covers about 577,420 acres.
The areas identified for conservation through this new national wildlife refuge support a wide range of species including waterfowl, shorebirds, forest-interior and grassland-dependent birds, and threatened and endangered species such as the dwarf wedgemussel, Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon, puritan and northeastern tiger beetles and the northern long-eared bat.
The proposed wildlife refuge would also provide resilience to climate change, protect water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and offer recreational opportunities, including hunting and fishing.
“This is one of the most pristine landscapes in the Chesapeake Bay watershed’s western shore, and it faces many threats. Our forests continue to be converted at a rate of about 54 acres a day, and more than 6 million acres of the forest and wetland resources in our watershed remain vulnerable to development. We are losing our iconic landscapes,” said Chesapeake Conservancy President and CEO Joel Dunn.
“The world’s leading scientists have called for the protection of 30% of the Earth’s lands and waters by 2030 to protect biodiversity and the climate. And there is no more important moment to do it than this one. During my lifetime, we have seen a catastrophic 73% decline in the average size of monitored wildlife populations around the world,” Dunn added.
“This new refuge offers an opportunity to halt and even reverse biodiversity loss in this important place, and in a way that fully integrates and respects the leadership and rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities,” continued Dunn.
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Photo by Marvinann Patterson
