While we enjoy another beautiful Cape summer let’s pause to remember what it took to preserve this environment for our enjoyment and economy, and what we all need to do to maintain, if not improve it.

Seventy years ago, in 1955, the National Park Service (NPS) issued “A Report on a Seashore Recreation Area of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.” Examining the 3,700 miles of coastline from Maine to Texas, the report revealed that only 240 miles, less than 6.5%, were preserved for public use. None of it in Massachusetts.

NPS subsequently distributed a condensed version of the report to the public as a pamphlet, “Our Vanishing Shoreline.” The pamphlet noted the growing privatization of access to the ocean, a proliferation of signs identifying shorelines as PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING, SUBDIV

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