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Long Island is a 2 1/2 mile inland estuary marsh island located in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina within the city limits of Folly Beach.
The purpose of this website is to encourage public awareness and preservation of one of the last remaining undisturbed marsh island habitats left in the United States.
Throughout the years Long Island has been owned by several entities who have made repeated attempts of developing the island. Each attempt was met with very vocal opposition by the local population, public officials and environmental concerns.
In recent history, the current owners of Long Island, The Kimmel Group of Asheville, NC., graciously yielded to public pressure against planned development of the island and in a proactive move signed a contract in May 2008 with the national preservation entity, The Trust For Public Land ( www.tpl.org ) for the purchase of Long Island.
Economic times prevailed, funding collapsed from the TPL and now the owners are presenting plans that they hope in the end will provide a mutually beneficial opportunity for them to recover part of their investment and accommodate the needs of the environment and the public.
The owners have a concept that includes the building of three low foot print home sites within the island. These three homes will be owned and tended by ecologically sensitive individuals and the island will be fully protected under conservation easement. The home sites would fall under regulations set under the conservation easement which would monitor their construction and conspicuousness in relationship to environmental impact.
There are plans as well for access to Long Island for schools, institutions interested in environmental educations and conditional use by the general public.
Access to the island is an issue to be resolved. Access for large scale development of Long Island has been a recurring source of legal conflict and public outcry. The new plans are the first ever presented by any owner of Long Island to focus on limited development and sweeping environmental preservation. Whether this new focus will encourage public, municipal and legal compromise concerning access remains to be seen.
The continued effort to save Long Island has encompassed years of hard work on the part of many concerned citizens, public officials and conservation organizations. Much gratitude must be expressed to all these persons and the owners of the island who under common interest are coming together for the responsible act of preserving Long Island for the health of our local natural environment and the benefit of our future generations. Special thanks must be given to the Coastal Conservation League (http://coastalconservationleague.org) for their tireless work in preserving Long Island and our many other local habitats.
Preserving Long Island will no doubt set a precedent to thwart future development attempts of our local vulnerable wetland habitats.
The natural world is forever dwindling with our expanding population. Every subsequent generation has less and less: less to feel part of, less to interact with, less for our children and their children to understand our integral and dependent relationship with the natural world around us. Many in our current generation suffer from lack of ecological understanding and we can only look forward to more careless apathy from upcoming generations unless we immediately plant a more educated environmentally conscious view in the minds of our young. As the current adults of our world, we have a profound responsibility to those that will inherit our actions to use our inherent human intelligence to safeguard the natural world in which they will live.
Best Regards,
Michael Dietrich
yarbo3@aol.com