2014 Annual Report

2014 AnnualREPORT CC_2014_AnnualReport.indd 1 7/23/15 11:33 AM a message from THE CHAIRMAN & THE PRESIDENT 1 Paul Hagen and Joel Dunn CC_2014_AnnualReport.indd 1 7/23/15 11:33 AM If Captain John Smith were to retrace his 1608 Chesapeake Bay How we take the next steps is the crux of our challenge. Your help voyages today, he would see a dramatically changed landscape. allows the Conservancy and our partners to take action in a new Captain Smith’s experience inspires a vision of a Chesapeake teeming way. We need to be wildly creative and achieve a collective impact. with fish and wildlife, healthy waters and abundant forests, wetlands, This requires unprecedented collaboration, new tools, and strong shorelines, and open spaces. Your support makes it possible for the community engagement. Chesapeake Conservancy to protect these special places of natural Whether your passion for the Chesapeake comes from an interest in wonder and discovery, rich in cultural traditions that we treasure and history, wildlife, education, public access, or a desire for healthier hope to conserve for the benefit of future generations. water and a richer ecosystem—your efforts matter. You help us keep The geography of the Chesapeake naturally weaves together the the vision of Captain Smith’s Chesapeake alive more than 400 years land and rivers in ways that make the ecosystem and our history later and provide the motivation the Conservancy needs to conserve inseparable from our daily lives. This landscape shapes our culture and restore the Chesapeake and its great rivers. and traditions and defines our communities. It is also important Describing his explorations of the Chesapeake, Captain Smith to recognize the enormity of the scale at which this Chesapeake wrote: “Heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for ecosystem is connected—from Cooperstown to Virginia Beach—and man’s habitation.” Smith’s explorations provide a framework for this that our challenges are occurring at several scales simultaneously, summary of the Conservancy’s accomplishments in 2014. Come along ranging from the very local to the global. with us as we follow the Trail and see what your contributions to the With human beings making an ever-increasing impact on our land, Chesapeake Conservancy’s work have done to restore Captain Smith’s water, air, and climate, a land ethic that considers future generations is vision and to keep that vision alive for this and future generations. particularly relevant. The Chesapeake region, which has a population approaching 18 million and climbing, is losing tens of thousands of acres of open space each year. Now more than ever, we as a community hold the power to protect or destroy this place we love. Paul E. Hagen, Esq. Joel E. Dunn Chairman of the Board President & CEO CC_2014_AnnualReport.indd 2 7/23/15 11:33 AM “…The situationofthe riversare so propitioustothe nature anduse of man asno place ismore convenientfor pleasure,profitandman’ssustanence.” – Captain John Smith, A Map of Virginia, 1612 CC_2014_AnnualReport.indd 3 7/23/15 11:33 AM Captain John Smith mapped the Chesapeake and its Great Rivers with astonishing accuracy, given his relatively simple tools—a compass, a crude sextant, an hourglass, and a notebook. Smith had help from the American Indians who described the lands and waterways beyond the crosses that he used to mark the extent of his exploration. Smith’s map and writings influenced European exploration and settlement in the region for several generations. The Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, the first water-based national trail in this country, focuses on Smith’s explorations of the Chesapeake, the American Indians who lived here, and the ecology of the Chesapeake Bay, both in Smith’s time and today. The Trail helps people experience, envision, understand, and protect what the explorers and inhabitants of the region encountered more than 400 years ago. The Chesapeake Conservancy, in partnership with the National Park Service and others, works throughout the Chesapeake watershed to conserve the trail’s landscapes and Special Places and make those personal connections. The Chesapeake is a very different place today than on Smith’s explorations. Landscapes and ecosystems have changed, and with these changes, the Conservancy’s Conservation Innovation Center (CIC) has traded in the sextant and compass for web-based Geographic Information Systems and high-resolution aerial imagery and elevation data to map the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Smith’s maps were a blueprint for exploration of the Chesapeake. The CIC’s datasets and maps featured throughout this report are a blueprint to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of conservation practices, in an effort to restore the Chesapeake to the way Smith saw it in the 17th century. 3 CC_2014_AnnualReport.indd 3 7/23/15 11:33 AM LAND CONSERVATION FUNDS IN VIRGINIA Advocacy efforts by Conservancy staff and In May 1607, English colonists settled on land partners were rewarded when Congress they named Jamestowne on the river they named included $6 million in the Omnibus after King James I. Captain Smith, a leader in the Spending Bill for fiscal year 2015 for land conservation along the Captain John Smith colony, became acquainted with the surrounding Trail in Virginia, dedicated through the Land rivers, including tributaries of the James River. He and Water Conservation Fund. led trips up the Nansemond, the Chickahominy, and other rivers to trade with the Indians who VIRGINIA GOVERNOR TERRY MCAULIFFE lived along the waterways. Of the Nansemond, he described “most excellent fertile ground, so sweet, so pleasant, so beautiful, and so strong ENVISION THE a prospect for an invincible strong city with so JAMES RIPARIAN many commodities, that I know as yet I have BUFFER INITIATIVE not seen.” Of the Chickahominy, he wrote of “more plenty of swans, cranes, geese, ducks and mallards, Outlined in Envision the James: A Vision for the James River Watershed, the Conservancy established partnerships and divers sorts of fowls none would desire.” with Virginia’s Soil and Water Conservation Districts and provided high-resolution land cover data and seed During one trip on the Chickahominy, American funding that will be used to advance riparian buffer projects. These strategically placed vegetated areas Indians captured Smith and held him prisoner provide wildlife habitat and enhance water quality. for six weeks. In captivity, Smith learned Indian lifeways, their language, and the geography of the region. This knowledge served Smith on future expeditions on the Rappahannock, Potomac, and JAMES RIVER other Great Rivers in Virginia. VIEWSHED The Conservancy collaborated with Virginia state agencies to identify areas throughout the Captain John Smith Trail where visible landscapes overlap with other ecological, historical, and cultural priorities. CHICKAHOMINY FALL FESTIVAL AND POW WOW 4 CC_2014_AnnualReport.indd 4 7/23/15 11:33 AM CONSERVANCY HELPS LAUNCH CLIMATE DATA INITIATIVE Chesapeake Conservancy President and CEO Joel Dunn joined prominent technology innovators and climate scientists at the White House for the public launch of the Climate Data Initiative, a part of the Obama Administration’s climate change program. CALEDON PUBLIC ACCESS Through partnerships with state, local, and federal agencies, the virginia Conservancy has created more public access to the Chesapeake ACCOMPLISHMENTS Bay and its Great Rivers. Sites like Caledon State Park in Virginia provide the opportunity 2014 to explore the Captain John Smith Trail. CLIMATE HACKATHON In the interest of turning data into insight, the Conservancy’s Conservation Innovation Center hosted a “Code for Good” event in Virginia Beach to support the Obama Administration’s Climate Data Initiative. The collaborative created a conceptual design for a low-cost sensor package that can measure water levels and wirelessly transmits real-time data to manage flood events in vulnerable coastal communities. 5 CC_2014_AnnualReport.indd 5 7/23/15 11:33 AM BALTIMORE WILDERNESS Following the successful designation of the Masonville Cove Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnership, the Conservancy is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other partners to advance urban wildlife conservation, public access, and During his 1608 voyage, Captain Smith explored environmental opportunities in Baltimore through the Greater Baltimore Wilderness what would become present-day Maryland, not only initiative. Through this initiative, the noting the varying landscapes, but, more famously, partners will work to create a resilient network describing migrations of anadromous fish such as of parks and open spaces in Maryland’s and DC’s urban areas. shad and striped bass that happen today, though in RIDGELY’S COVE fewer numbers. “… In divers places that abundance of fish lying HARRIET TUBMAN UNDERGROUND so thick with their heads above water as for RAILROAD NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK want of nets we attempted to catch them with The Chesapeake Conservancy supported the designation of the Harriet Tubman a frying pan… Neither better fish, more plenty, Underground Railroad National Historical Park. The park has locations in Maryland, as well as Auburn and Fleming, New York, and honors the famous nor more variety for small fish had any of us African American abolitionist for her efforts in the Underground Railroad. seen in any place so swimming in the water The designation also protects land on Maryland’s Eastern Shore that is both than in the Bay of Chesapeake.…”

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