Project Summary:

Baffin Bay is the “jewel of the Texas coast”, with salty waters that have traditionally supported world-class fishing for spotted seatrout, redfish, and black drum. This fishery contributes significantly to the economy of surrounding communities in South Texas. However, over the last three to four decades, the bay’s water quality and overall ecosystem health experienced a significant decline. Symptoms of this decline include but are not limited to mass fish kill events, persistent harmful algal blooms, and population declines of several commercially important fish species. These negative trends have detrimental impacts on the ecosystem and the economy of the local community and have increased in frequency and intensity over the past several decades, catching the attention of local stakeholders such as anglers, fishing guides, landowners, and bay-dependent businesses. 

“I want to see the overall decline turned around. Baffin Bay has provided a good economy locally from both commercial and sport fishing, and duck hunting. We want to have that back and sustain it.”

Richard Unterbrink, Stakeholder (began fishing in Baffin Bay 56 years ago, at age 10)

Since 2013, researchers have been working to understand the environmental and socioeconomic drivers of water quality change and assess the health of critical habitat and fish species in the bay. They have determined that the primary cause of the decline in Baffin Bay’s health is excessive nutrient pollution from the bay’s 1.5-million-acre watershed, mostly attributed to human activities. Equipped with data from a citizen science water quality study, the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (HRI) partnered with the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program (CBBEP) in 2018 to form the Baffin Bay Stakeholder Group (BBSG) in order to engage with stakeholders who have a vested interest in the bay and ultimately to develop solutions that address the challenges impacting the bay. The overarching goals of the BBSG are to: 

• Find solutions to the water quality problems contributing to the decline in the health of Baffin Bay
• Restore key watershed and bay habitat that has been lost
• Foster a stewardship ethos, especially among younger generations of residents
• Advance efforts to educate the public on the relationship between watershed and bay health

The Bringing Baffin Back initiative launched by HRI, CBBEP, and the BBSG is unique in that it applies an ecosystem approach. This conservation strategy is multifaceted, integrating land, water, and wildlife management strategies in a way that provides compatible conservation practices and promotes sustainable use while delivering equitable benefits for Texans and nature within Baffin Bay and surrounding lands. The initiative unites partners from interdisciplinary backgrounds and utilizes an integrated, phased approach to first address the watershed sources of pollutants, followed by a rigorous, long-term bay-wide habitat restoration and conservation initiative. 

Phases of the Bringing Baffin Back Initiative:

Phase I: Monitoring & research to characterize water quality conditions in Baffin Bay and to determine pollutant sources contributing to water quality degradation.

• When: Commenced in May 2013 with a citizen science water quality sampling program. Water quality sampling is on-going.
• What: Monitoring of water quality and other indicators of ecosystem health to assess changes in the bay and to assess progress towards restoration goals.

Phase II: Watershed management & restoration.

• When: Commenced in 2018 with the formation of the Baffin Bay Stakeholder Group and is on-going.
• What: Securing additional funding for watershed management and restoration, including projects to address pollution sources such as failing municipal wastewater infrastructure, residential septic tanks, stormwater flows, and agricultural non-point sources.

Phase III: Baffin Bay habitat characterization & restoration.

• When: Plans to commence in 2023.
• What: Scientists and restoration practitioners will characterize and restore vital habitat (i.e., seagrass, serpulid reefs) that has been lost in Baffin Bay due to water quality degradation or other human activities.

The rationale for this multi-phased ecosystem approach is simple – the health of Baffin Bay is intricately tied to the health of the surrounding lands.

Project Mission: 

Bringing Baffin Back aims to restore, conserve, and protect this natural resource of great ecological and economical importance to Texas. Bringing Baffin Back is a sustained commitment to dramatically improve the health of Baffin Bay and the surrounding economy through partnerships between scientists and stakeholders who want the bay to thrive. Restoring the health of the Baffin Bay watershed has the potential to enhance recreational and educational opportunities, ecosystem services, and the overall economy of the greater Coastal Bend area.

Project Impact:

• The Baffin Bay watershed covers an area of 1.5+ million acres. Baffin Bay itself encompasses ~65,000 acres. 
• 87,188+ residents in the Baffin Bay watershed benefit from ecosystem services provided by healthy bay habitats, enhanced ecotourism, and recreation opportunities.
• The marine economy in Texas produced a Gross State Product (GSP) of $86.2 billion in 2018. In the same year, there were a total of 1,247,000 recreational fishing trips in the state, contributing $14 million of economic value.

Additional economic benefits from Bringing Baffin Back’s efforts include the following, which the initiative will quantify over time: 

• Avoided damages from continued bay pollution (i.e., reduction of harmful water quality events, reduction of fish kills, lost economic income from poor water conditions and/or fisheries), 
• Increased economic yield via tourism (recreational fisheries, public use of waterways, etc.), 
• Increased economic yield via commercial fisheries as a result of more resilient fish and shellfish populations, 
• Increase in property values as a result of improved water and habitat quality.

Partners Include:

The Bringing Baffin Back initiative is managed by the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies (HRI) and the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program (CBBEP). Generous financial support for Bringing Baffin Back-related research and outreach has been provided by the Celanese Corporation, the Coastal Conservation Association, the Saltwater Fisheries Enhancement Association, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Texas General Land Office, Texas Sea Grant and the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board. 

The Baffin Bay Stakeholder Group (BBSG) consists of hundreds of individuals representing scientists, citizen groups, landowners, philanthropies, policymakers, local municipalities, state officials, nonprofit organizations, and private businesses.

Project Needs:

Bringing Baffin Back was selected as a Texan by Nature Conservation Wrangler based on the project’s positive impact to people, prosperity, and natural resources. Through the program, Texan by Nature is working with the Bringing Baffin Back initiative to address the following needs:

• Identification of landowners who want to play a role in improving water quality and the overall health of Baffin Bay.
• Greater public awareness of the environmental issues in Baffin Bay, and Bringing Baffin Back’s efforts to find solutions that benefit all Texans, the economy, and the overall health of the watershed.
• Development of diverse partnerships with stakeholders such as businesses, nonprofits, and government entities in Baffin Bay’s 1.5+ million-acre watershed and throughout Texas.
• Identification of volunteers to assist with HRI’s monthly citizen science water quality monitoring and sampling program.

Texan by Nature’s Vision and Support:

Texan by Nature (TxN) is working with the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies (HRI) and the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program (CBBEP) to increase awareness of the environmental issues impacting Baffin Bay and find solutions that benefit all Texans, the economy, and the overall health of the watershed. In addition to highlighting Bringing Baffin Back as a successful framework for the collaborative engagement of local stakeholders and as an effective model for ecosystem-scale restoration, TxN is working with HRI and CBBEP to increase community and industry support, help report impact metrics, develop strategic partnerships, and more.

Contact Texan by Nature at info@texanbynature.org & (512) 284-7482 if you can provide resources, and connections, or are interested in partnering and would like to learn more.