Checkout our iOS App for a better way to browser and research.
The sea has long dominated the history of the United States Virgin Islands. It has, until the advent of the air age, been the only route to the outside. The sea has brought to these islands all of the seven flags that have reigned over them. It has also been a constant source of food and recreation. The threshold to the sea that surrounds us is the shoreline. The shorelines of the United States Virgin Islands have in the past been used freely by all residents and visitors alike. The seashore has been a place of recreation, of meditation, of physical therapy and of rest to Virgin Islanders past and present. To fishermen the sea and its shores are a way of life. The second half of the twentieth century has brought adverse changes to the United States Virgin Islands shorelines. There has been uncontrolled and uncoordinated development of this area, together with attempts, sometimes successful, to curtail the use of these areas by the public.
The Legislature recognizes that the public has made frequent, uninterrupted and unobstructed use of the shorelines of the United States Virgin Islands throughout Danish rule and under American rule as recently as the nineteen fifties. It is the intent of the Legislature to preserve what has been a tradition and to protect what has become a right of the public.