In the Wake of the Watermen

Picture a seemingly boundless wildland marsh, devoid of any high-rise buildings and developments, stretching along the continuous coast of the Atlantic Ocean -- the last fully functioning barrier island ecosystem on the Atlantic Coast of the United States. Dating back centuries to the legendary watermen who earned their living among the wild wetlands, the bountiful resources of Virginia's Eastern Shore have been the setting for colonial and modern-day civilizations, societies who have not been frightened away by the vast, untamed nature of the marshes and the fourteen coastal barrier islands. When the Virginia Coast was threatened by proposals for massive development in the 1970's, The Nature Conservancy took action. to form the Virginia Coast Reserve. Thankfully, in 1971, the United Nations designated the Virginia Eastern Shore as a World Biosphere Reserve, encouraging protection of both the wildland's wealth of natural resources and the history of human communities who were bound inextricably to their natural environment.

The challenge, therefore, became to create a sustainable community that would continue to benefit from and respect the outstanding natural reserve. The Nature Conservancy, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, one of the largest private, non-profit conservation organizations in the world, has undertaken the difficult task of safeguarding the rich ecosystem of the reserve while protecting the interests of the locals that inhabit it. As the plan to develop a model of how people should live with nature gradually progresses, a great deal of trust and respect -- a necessary element needed for understanding an ecosystem conservation program -- is growing as an alliance forms between The Nature Conservancy and the Eastern Shore community.

The Nature Conservancy has begun an ambitious program (winner of the 1994 Virginia Chapter of the American Planning Association Meritorious Award) that forms partnerships with the local community to combine conservation, economic development, and protection of traditional ways of life on the Eastern Shore. Now known as the Virginia Eastern Shore Biosphere Reserve, it has become the banner for the Conservancy's "Last Great Places" campaign; the reserve is a working example of a long-range strategy to create working models of sustainable communities in viable wetlands and wildlands worldwide. This strategy results from The Nature Conservancy's growing recognition of the important ecological relationships between the vital natural area and its neighboring human communities.

The reserve stems out in the Ocean toward fourteen barrier islands that are almost completely owned by The Nature Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy recently secured the final two pieces of Smith Island, completing a valuable link in the process of ownership of the Virginia barrier islands that began more than twenty years ago. (The federal government possesses a lighthouse and the less than one acre of the island on which it sits.)

The opportunity to preserve large amounts of wildlife habitat originally drew the Conservancy to the Eastern Shore. Breathtaking colonies of nesting shorebirds and hundreds of thousands of songbirds are found in these vital marshes. The Nature Conservancy has steadily increased its involvement in response to the challenge of preserving wildlife, for these shorebirds use the wetlands as a "rest stop" during migration. In addition, East Coast populations of Gull-billed Terns and Black Skimmers have dropped in numbers during recent years, and the Gull-billed Tern is now classified as threatened by the state of Virginia.

Following construction of a cross-island road prior to Conservancy ownership, a proposal between The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service restored 140 acres of wetlands among the dunes and marshes of Parramore Island. To restore tidal flow to the marshes in the interior of the island, four pairs of aluminum culverts were installed under the road and a bulkhead/bridge was positioned in Goose Lakes. Other planned restoration projects include the planting of trees and shrubs on several Eastern Shore properties, including in Kiptopeke State Park.

Cherrystone Aqua-Farms, a private aquaculture business in Whillis Wharf, was designed by the Conservancy to be compatible with traditional waterfront architecture of the existing community. In addition, an affordable housing community in Nassawadox, known as the Sawmill project, has been designed to resemble local homes of the period when the steam-operated sawmill was in operation. (The new homes are adjacent to the site of the soon-to-be restored Northampton Lumber Co. Mill, a local landmark for nearly a century.) The Nature Conservancy worked with the Town and the local community, and Sasaki and Associates provided landscape architectural and building design assistance for the project.

An environmentally-motivated community initiative occurred in 1991 with the creation of the Northampton Economic Forum (NEF), an organization aimed at developing employment for the community and promoting traditional farming and fisheries while protecting its natural resources. Spawned by Citizens For a Better Eastern Shore, the Forum explores creative ways of diversifying through tourism, which includes conducting small tours of charming nineteenth-century farmhouses and beautiful gardens for visitors who want to discover the historic and modern-day charms of rural life on the Eastern Shore. With this in mind, The Nature Conservancy is building various innovative partnerships that will maintain the rural character and vitality of the bountiful Eastern Shore wildlands.

In addition to limiting outright purchase of lands in the reserve, new approaches to extending protection in adjacent "buffer" lands will allow for future growth and will protect the economic value of the private lands. The creation of private conservation easements that protect seaside farms and open spaces allows for varying densities of human use based on the carrying capacities of the land. Both landowners and investors have found through the easements that conservation efforts do not devalue property; on the contrary, the easements help to maintain values by protecting open spaces, natural resources, and aesthetic attributes of the land.

The Nature Conservancy has expanded the Virginia Coast Reserve design into an holistic approach to ecological community planning on a landscape level. The design densities, or the number of units that the land will allow, are arranged to complement the designs of traditional farmsteads and villages. Although considered a complex approach to conservation, the limited development plan of the Virginia Coast Reserve is already proving beneficial to its community in terms of employment, investment, and protection of global resources. Landscape Architects who are aware of this prototype can strategize new ways to develop environmentally sensitive areas.

The community of Willis Wharf on Virginia's Eastern Shore is exploring some promising alternatives to development and decline of its traditional practices, choices that reflect the vision of its ongoing citizen-based process. As a small waterfront community of about 300 people, Willis Wharf contains a pure and vital ecosystem within its creeks and tidal marshes. Itself perhaps one of the "last great" working models of human and natural coexistence, Willis Wharf lies at the heart of the Virginia Coast ecosystem.

The future developmental vision of Willis Wharf includes gradual growth and preservation of its surrounding rural open space. To achieve this vision, landscape designers and community planners will coordinate with the public and private landowners to ensure that roads, sidewalks and streetlights are designed to maintain the traditional village character of Willis Wharf, as well as the entire Virginia Eastern Shore Biosphere Reserve. Above all, these designs for the future illustrate the fact that human communities will always be bound, through custom and tradition, to the natural ones that surround them.