Click for details
What is a Land Trust
and
How to Protect Land
WHAT'S NEWS!
***Land Trust Solar Array Now Live! Click here to see the current output of our new solar array. The solar array was donated by the Solar Initiative, a Sustainable Vashon project.
***30 Acres of Judd Creek Land Permanently Protected
***Summer Interns Arrive
READ MORE.....Click here for the 2009 Summer Newsletter
|
Located in the central Puget Sound basin, Vashon-Maury Island is passionate about retaining a rural and natural character amidst today's rampant development. Vashon-Maury is surrounded by the Puget Sound megalopolis where population has doubled in the past twenty years, and natural places are being paved over as rapidly as possible.
Vashon itself is about 12-miles long. Maury is about 6- miles long and is attached to Vashon by a narrow isthmus. Together, they are about 25,000-acres (~37 sq.mi.), with a population of about 11,000. With saltwater shorelines of 51 miles, Vashon-Maury has over half of the shoreline of King County. Vashon-Maury was once a thriving agricultural community serving the Puget Sound market with produce. Now, however, it is primarily a commuter community with many tele-commuters.
Although development has inexorably come to Vashon-Maury, the pace has been much slower than in the surrounding area because the only connection to the mainland is by the ferries. Thus, there are still sizeable areas of native Puget Sound lowland forests, streams where salmon spawn, miles of little disturbed shoreline with eel grass beds, a single-source aquifer, and many other ecological features that are worth preserving. It is the mission of the Vashon-Maury Land Trust to conserve lands to protect the natural ecosystems and rural character of Vashon-Maury Island.
|
