News Release

For release December 5, 2007
Contact Michael Shultz
410-972-2470 (office)
410-353-3352 (mobile)

Chesapeake Executive Council asked to expedite implementation of the new Capt. John Smith trail

Annapolis, MD, December 5 2007 -- The Friends of the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail has asked the Chesapeake Executive Council to take several specific actions to expedite implementation of the John Smith Trail.

The Chesapeake Executive Council meets in Annapolis today. It is made up of the Governors of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Mayor of the District of Columbia and the Chair of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, a legislative body serving Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The council establishes policy for the restoration and protection of the bay.

The Friends, a group of advocates that helped make the new National Historic Trail a reality, urged the council to name a multidisciplinary team from appropriate state agencies, including planning, natural and cultural resources, tourism, and transportation, to work closely with the National Park Service and other partners to:

• Identify and inventory significant landscapes, viewsheds and other related areas along the bay and tributaries that are associated with the John Smith Trail and its many stories and are candidates for potential conservation or protection.
  
  
• Identify the enhancements needed at existing and potential public sites associated with the trail (such as boat ramps; federal, state and local parks and wildlife management areas; camping areas and waterway rest stops.
  
  
• Identify a variety of ways to create access and preserve special places along the trail, including tax incentives, working with local communities and non-profits, and potential state, federal, and local management and acquisition.
  
  
• Identify potential connections between hiking and biking trails and the watertrail and the means for developing these connections.

The Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail was enacted by Congress and authorized by President Bush in December 2006. The new trail traces the 1607-1609 voyages of Captain John Smith to chart the land and waterways of the Chesapeake Bay. The legislation directs the National Park Service to develop and administer the trail in cooperation with the Chesapeake Bay Program, the Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network, other federal, state, tribal, regional and local agencies and the private sector.

The Friends also requested the council to ask the Bush administration and the Congress to reauthorize the Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Program which expires in 2008 and which provides technical and financial support for the John Smith Trail.

The National Park Service is now beginning to implement the trail with its partners and to develop a comprehensive management plan for the trail.

The trail provides opportunities to promote cooperative conservation and citizen stewardship of the Chesapeake and its tributaries through education, recreation, heritage tourism, conservation of significant landscapes, and improved public access.

However, the Chesapeake Bay has changed dramatically since John Smith’s time. Much of the landscape that Smith saw -- forests, wetlands, and open spaces -- has been heavily altered, and continues to be impacted, by population growth and associated development. Yet many places remain that can provide trail users with experiences that can inspire them to value the bay. The John Smith Trail provides an opportunity to help preserve these important places.

The trail also provides an opportunity to improve public access to the bay. Today, less than 2 percent of the land fronting the bay and its tidal tributaries is open to the public, and even those areas are threatened by current development trends, the impacts of sea level rise, shoreline erosion and other factors.