Specifications include, but are not limited to:The Puget Sound Marine and Nearshore Grant Program (Grant Program) is one of seven lead organizations tasked with managing and distributing federal funds for the protection and restoration of Puget Sound. The Grant Program is a partnership between the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, and administers funds awarded by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The funds are used to implement priorities of the Action Agenda for Puget Sound – to protect and restore habitat and ecosystem functions. Project Objective The overall objective of this solicitation is to create a “Shore Friendly” website to engage residential shoreline landowners on the topic of shore armor and compel them to action – either by investigating this issue, signing up for a workshop or other experience in their area, or obtaining technical assistance. Background Previously, the Grant Program contracted with the social marketing firm Colehour + Cohen and partners to develop the Social Marketing Strategy to Reduce Shoreline Armoring in Puget Sound, also known as the SMS (available on our program website). This project developed a social marketing behavior change strategy designed to influence priority segments of the marine residential shoreline landowner population to remove or forgo hard shoreline armor. Hard shoreline armor negatively affects Puget Sound marine ecosystems in a number of ways, including depriving beaches of sediment, destroying valuable forage fish spawning habitat, and many others. Reducing or forgoing hard armor is an important priority for Puget Sound. As a continuation of the SMS project, the Grant Program is funding five local entities (e.g. counties, conservation districts, NGOs) to develop pilot programs to implement the social marketing recommendations of the SMS on a local level. Each project targets different segments of the shoreline landowner population, and offers different incentives to landowners to help overcome their barriers and motivate them to choose alternatives to armor.
