SNEP 2021 Southeast New England Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project Report

In this technical report, we describe the outcomes of a survey of civic environmental stewardship groups in the Southeast New England Program (SNEP) region, which includes the watersheds of Narragansett Bay, Buzzards Bay, Cape Cod, and adjacent Islands. Data collection occurred from November 2020 to June 2021 and involved the creation of a database of environmental stewardship groups (n = 718) who were contacted to participate, resulting in a final sample of 149 valid survey responses. This document reports on the attributes of responding organizations activities (e.g., primary stewardship activities, stewardship foci, etc.) and capacities (e.g., budget, number of staff / volunteers, etc.), organizational network (n = 740 to 638 organizations depending on the level of sub-program and regional chapter aggregation), and geographies of stewardship organizations in the SNEP region. The project culminated in an online interactive map that allows people to view the data with the aim of learning about the groups stewarding specific places, their activities, and their networks. The interactive map is meant to help groups build capacity to enhance environmental stewardship. The report discusses several ways in which the data might be used to build such capacity, including working towards addressing specific environmental justice-oriented activities in the region.