Island Alliance

CONTACT:

408 Altantic Avenue, Suite 228
Boston, MA 02110
(617) 223-8530
www.islandalliance.org

Thomas B. Powers, President

DESCRIPTION:

In 1996 Congress created the Boston Harbor Islands National Park — 34 islands extending over 50 square miles of open water in and around Boston Harbor. Their number, configuration, and wonderful geological, ecological, historical, and cultural features, so near a major metropolitan area, constitute a resource without parallel anywhere in the world. All of them were deteriorating and going to waste; now they are to be preserved and enhanced for public benefit.

To that end, Congress established in that same legislation a new model for managing our nation's natural and cultural resources: a partnership of 13 public and private organizations, including the Island Alliance (IA) — a new independent philanthropic corporation, charged with developing environmental, educational, recreational and economic programs that will generate $3 of private funds for every $1 of federal funding for the Park. Here is yet another example of philanthropy supplementing government in beneficial public administration.

Island Alliance is pursuing an economic development strategy featuring a family camp and resort on Peddocks Island and improvements to mainland Gateways to the park. It envisions a future in which the Boston Harbor Islands will receive 500,000 visitors annually, enriching our economy and our lives as part museum, part playground, part wildlife sanctuary, and part classroom. One of IA's highest priorities, for which your support is now needed, is to develop a Natural Resources Inventory and Monitoring Initiative, to study the islands' fragile ecosystems and visitation capacities so that the Park can be managed as a sustainable and healthy entity.

(2001: NATURE: Environment: Urban Environment)