Featured Partner
CBIBS is accomplished through collaboration among government agencies, organizations, and individuals. The Smart Buoys are made possible thanks to the efforts of groups like our featured partner:
The Friends of the John Smith Chesapeake Trail
In 2006, the
Friends of the John Smith Chesapeake Trail united many individuals, businesses, non-profit groups, government organizations, and local, county and state governments to support the establishment of the Trail and buoy system.
Today, the Friends realize that ongoing support for the buoys is critical to maintaining the system's high level of operations and growing suite of capabilities and observational scope. This 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation continues to collaborate with a broad spectrum of people and organizations to bring the Trail and CBIBS visions to life.
Learn how the Friends are supporting CBIBS-and how you can play an important role right
now. The
Friend's web site features news about the Trail and buoy system. You and/or your organization can
join the Friends or receive an
e-newsletter featuring Trail and buoy updates.
Our Partners
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) is the only independent 501(c)(3) organization dedicated solely to restoring and protecting the Chesapeake Bay and its tributary rivers. Since our founding 40 years ago, our goal has been to improve water quality by reducing pollution. Our motto, Save the Bay, has been the battle cry for that goal.
The Conservation Fund is the nation's foremost environmental nonprofit dedicated to protecting America's most important landscapes and waterways. Through its partnership-driven approach, the Fund works across all 50 states to preserve each region's unique natural resources, cultural heritage and historic places. Committed to effectiveness, efficiency and environmental and economic balance, the Fund is pioneering a new environmentalism that is results-oriented and sustainable, agile and inclusive, and one that inspires future generations.
The Friends of the John Smith Chesapeake Trail, a 501(c) (3) nonprofit corporation, promotes public access, conservation, and education, and fosters local support along the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail. The Friends celebrate the unique history and environment of the Chesapeake Bay and seeks opportunities to conserve lands along the Bay and its tributaries to create a lasting conservation legacy for future generations.
Since 1890 the National Geographic Society's Committee for
Research and Exploration has supported more than 7,500
projects and expeditions-including the excavation of
Machu Picchu, the discovery of Titanic, and the work
of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and the Leakey family.
The committee continues to fund vital research,
embodying the Society's 115-year-old
mission: "to increase and diffuse
geographic knowledge."
On December 19, 2006, President George W. Bush signed legislation establishing the Capt. John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail. The John Smith trail is the first national water trail in the United States and will be administered by the National Park Service. Designed to complement the existing Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Water trails Network, also administered by the National Park Service, the trail will commemorate the exploratory voyages of Captain Smith on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries in 1607-1609. It will also provide significant new opportunities for education, recreation, and heritage tourism in the Chesapeake Bay Region. The law requires the Secretary of the Interior to administer the trail "in coordination" with the Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Water trails Network and the federal-state Chesapeake Bay Program that is leading efforts to restore the estuary. The Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Water Trails Network, authorized by Congress in 1998, numbers more than 150 gateway sites and over 1500 miles of water trails including the James River alongside Jamestown and reaching into the most distant parts of the watershed, the Chemung River in New York.
Each year more than 15,000 students of all ages take part in a unique educational experience with Sultana Projects. Whether sailing the Chesapeake on the decks of the 1768 reproduction schooner Sultana, exploring the world of the early Chesapeake through the Captain John Smith Four Hundred Project, learning about the life of an 18th century sailor in a classroom outreach program, burning an Indian dugout canoe at the Sultana Shipyard or studying the Bay's incredible history and environment through one of Sultana Projects' classroom curriculum units, students gain a greater appreciation for the national treasure that is the Chesapeake Bay.
