Six months from now, at least 61 of California’s 278 state parks will close – from historic museums to lands that protect sensitive wildlife habitats and prehistoric Native Californian sites.

Some parks saved, others deserted

In a time when the sentiment of state government officials is to give the public what they are willing to pay for, parks have not been spared. Some state parks have already been abandoned – particularly those in rural, remote and low income areas. As the Nonprofit Law Prof Blog notes:

The parks located near populous areas may have a better chance of generating the kind of fundraising that will be needed to keep them open.

In “Twilight for a state park” published today in the Sacramento Bee, Susan Sward describes Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area as a “ghostly place.” Like many of the parks on the closure list in rural regions, Standish-Hickey does not have a partner to step up and save the park. After visiting the same park, blogger Lucy D’Mot considers how past land donors might feel about the closures:

I always wonder how the families of those who donated acreage to the state (country, city, county) feel when those lands come up for closure. I would think sadness, anger and betrayal might be part of the emotions involved …

Indeed, for more than 100 years conservationists and stewards of our natural and cultural heritage have raised funds and donated lands to save and protect special places in perpetuity for all Americans. What would the Tetons be without the Rockefellers, San Francisco’s Crissy Field without the Haas family, California’s last remaining redwoods without leadership from Save the Redwoods League — and the state park system without billions in voter-approved public bond funds from 1928 to 2000?

Another remote park, Castle Crags State Park near Mount Shasta, is also being deserted: “After nearly two decades, California has terminated its contract with a non-profit dedicated to the welfare of Castle Crags State Park,” writes MtShastaNews.com.

Nine parks saved and 47 “letters of interest”

So far, California State Parks has been willing to enter into agreements in situations when public agencies and donors step up with funds and commitments to keep specific parks open. It remains to be seen if the parks department will enter into operating agreements with nonprofit organizations, now authorized to run parks under the new law AB 42.

According to California State Parks spokesperson Roy Stearns, in early January the agency had received 47 “Letters of Interest” from various nonprofits, cooperating associations, cities and counties asking about what it would take to assume the operations of a park in their community. “We are working through all of those letters of interest to answer questions to see if the interest leads to a proposal,” wrote Stearns in an email.

As of January 4, 2012, Stearns reported that California State Parks confirmed agreements with nine parks for remaining open and operating:

1. Antelope Valley Indian Museum State Historic Park – donor funds
2. Colusa-Sacramento River State Recreation Area – Operating agreement with the City of Colusa
3. Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park – National Park Service agreement
4. Henry W. Coe State Park – Donor, the Coe Park Preservation Fund
5. McGrath State Beach – Donor funds and grant money
6. Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve – Concession agreement for nonprofit Bodie Foundation to collect new parking fees will keep facilities open. California State Parks will continue to run the reserve.
7. Point Cabrillo Light Station State Historic Park – Ongoing concession/operating agreement
8. Samuel P. Taylor State Park – National Park Service agreement
9. Tomales Bay State Park – National Park Service Agreement

Senator introduces bill to require a formal review of park closures

In the meantime, on January 19, 2012, Senator Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) introduced SB 974, a bill that would require the California Department of Parks and Recreation to conduct a formal review of park closures. In the press release, Evans writes: “I have a serious problem with Parks’ decisions. There has been no transparency, no public process, and no economic impact study. It appears arbitrary.”

SB 974 would require Parks to develop a formal and transparent process to examine potential closures using defined criteria. The legislation would also require that California State Parks examine other budget savings measures in lieu of closures.

Blog series
This is the 19th article in a series on threats to California State Parks and the search for sustainable funding. A special thanks goes to Roy Stearns of the California Department of Parks and Recreation for providing the latest information on parks saved from closure.

A growing number of nonprofits are using computer mapping technology to visualize and solve complex social and environmental problems and support planning, fundraising and communications. As dry as the word data sounds, streams of accessible and transparent data about our communities have great potential to spur innovative solutions for public good.

On Monday, I learned about a new interactive online mapping tool that taps unfathomable amounts of ecological data concerning the Bay Area’s undeveloped open spaces, some protected and some not, to help a coalition of open space advocates save Bay Area biodiversity. The big announcement came from the Bay Area Open Space Council on behalf of the new Conservation Lands Network. The level of collaboration and data crunching behind the effort is staggering when you take a look at the network’s product called, “Explorer.”

To check out the new tool, I thought about a hike I took last Sunday in northern Marin County.

My hike climbed the rolling slopes and oak-filled ravines of the Mount Burdell Open Space Preserve near the town of Novato. At the flanks of the 1627-acre preserve, purchased in 1977 by the Marin Open Space District and local residents, large suburban homes crept upslope, stopping at the border. Trails named Cobblestone Fire Road and Old Quarry Trail hinted of a storied past when stones were mined for San Francisco streets in 1888.

From the new Explorer mapping tool, I learned that the swath of land in and around the Mount Burdell Preserve constitutes one area prioritized as “essential” to Bay Area conservation goals.

The preserve is protected but some of the adjacent undeveloped lands are not. Honing in on the area with a drawing tool, I made a shape around the area of my hike, and with one click the system created an automated “Biodiversity Portfolio Report.” Although fairly scientific, I gathered that my hike took me through a number of vegetation types considered “conservation targets” including serpentine grasslands and hardwoods, valley oak woodlands, semi-desert scrub and a couple of rare wildflowers that grow in the preserve’s serpentine soils: Marin western flax and fragrant fritillary.


To learn more about the Conservation Lands Network, read Big Plans for Wild Lands in Bay Nature magazine by former San Francisco Chronicle environment reporter Glen Martin and visit the Bay Area Open Space Council’s blog.

Mapping resources for social and environmental causes:

• MapTogether – This site offers the free Illustrated Guide to Nonprofit GIS & Online Mapping and links to several examples of nonprofits using maps as visual tools for building public awareness, communications and decision-making.
• NonProfitMapping.org – Although this site has been inactive for the last year, the content is still highly relevant for nonprofits, philanthropists and journalists.
• GreenInfo Network – Nonprofit that helps public interest groups, agencies and foundations develop maps and other visual communication tools.
• Justice Mapping Center – Group that specializes in the use of Geographic Information Systems to better understand, evaluate, and communicate criminal justice and other social policy information.
• Stewardship Council’s Youth Investment Program – This web page links to several resources and GIS maps on issues of concern to the outdoor and environmental education field.
• Healthy City – Create maps of social and environmental demographics, data and services in California.

• Swim in It: Swim-Art organizes evening group swims at Aquatic Park (Monday evenings) and Treasure Island (biweekly Wednesdays) and expedition swims, including an Alcatraz swim.
• Learn from Bay Nature Magazine and The Bay Institute
• Volunteer with Save the Bay or The Watershed Project (The 25th Anniversary of the California Coastal Cleanup Day is this Saturday)
• Visit Aquarium of the Bay
• Join a club, team or association. Bay Access (advocates for a Bay water trail) provides a comprehensive list from kayaking and kite sailing to dragon boating.

Bridalveil Falls, Yosemite

More and more, parks and partnering nonprofits are hosting field seminars that explore the lesser-known history of people of color in the national parks. In addition to being a social equity issue, park leaders are realizing that our national parks need an informed, diverse and supportive constituency to ensure the long-term stewardship of these treasures.

In Burns’ “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” scheduled to air on PBS this September, one of the leading storytellers is African American Yosemite Park Ranger Shelton Johnson, who shares these ideals: “There is nothing more democratic than a national park. You are going into a wonderland. You are going into a different world… So why should only one part of the population have that sense of wonder and that experience of discovery? Why can’t African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and everybody have that experience? Because that is part of the experience of being an American, it belongs to everyone.”

In the documentary, Burns reveals “untold stories” of our national parks and the contributions by people of color in their conservation and preservation. Recently called “a rising star” by one reporter, Johnson is profiled in today’s San Francisco Chronicle. Johnson grew up in Detroit, where the national parks seemed like unreachable places. Four years ago, co-producers of the new documentary, WETA and Florentine Films, received support from the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund to launch the “Untold Stories project,” in which Johnson brings to light the story of the Buffalo Soldiers and the role of African Americans early in the history of the national parks. The purpose of the project is to engage new and traditionally underserved audiences in the “educational richness of the national parks.”

The film series weaves together stories of people transformed and inspired by the parks today, like Johnson, as well as historical accounts. Chiura Obata, a Japanese artist who moved from Tokyo to San Francisco in 1903, also gained inspiration from Yosemite and the High Sierra. Obata’s studio in Berkeley was recently named a historic landmark. Through his art he also promoted cross-cultural understanding and offered new perspectives on nature, including many Yosemite landmarks. His 1930 color wood block prints titled, “Evening Glow of Yosemite Waterfall;” “Lake Basin in High Sierra” and “Evening Glow of Mono Lake and Before Thunderstorm, Tuolumne Meadows;” are among my favorite works of Yosemite landscapes.

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea is a six-episode series directed by Ken Burns and written and co-produced by Dayton Duncan. You can view film clips on the PBS Web site and also share a story of your own experiences in the national parks. The film series will air on PBS beginning September 27, 2009.

Western snowy plover

Almost one year ago, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) launched a competition to save endangered species in San Francisco, the Peninsula and Marin. On Saturday, January 10, the year-long event called the “2008 GGNRA Endangered Species Big Year” will come to a close with an announcement of the grand prize award winner and free food and other gifts for wildlife enthusiasts at the Crissy Field Center.

The closing ceremony will feature give aways from Arizmendi Bakery, free 2009 nature almanacs from WildNature and free subscriptions to Bay Nature Magazine for 50 visitors. After the ceremony, bird experts will lead a short hike to search for the Western snowy plover, an endangered San Francisco shorebird.

GGNRA, a unit of the national park system, includes the world-renowned destinations of Alcatraz Island and Muir Woods and is the world’s largest urban national park with over 75,000 acres in San Francisco, Marin, and San Mateo counties. GGNRA has a unique geographical position covering a broad range of habitats for plants and wildlife including marine habitats, salt marshes, redwood forests, chaparral and coastal scrub habitats, and grasslands, just to name a few.

According to the National Park Service, the GGNRA contains more endangered species than any other National Park in continental North America: more than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks combined.

The 2008 GGNRA Endangered Species Big Year was a race against time to see and save each of the park’s 33 endangered species. During 2008, over 250 Endangered Species Big Year competitors raced to see each of the 33 endangered species found in the GGNRA, and then take 33 actions that help these species recover during the calendar year in 2008.

According to GGNRA, three competitors are vying for the grand prize: Liam O’Brien, former Broadway actor; Steve Price, branding expert who named products such as Blackberry, Pentium and Apple PowerBook; and David Seaborg, son of the Berkeley physicist for whom the element Seaborgium is named.

For more information, visit www.ggnrabigyear.org

Other stories and resources:
KQED Earth Day Radio Special: The History of Environmental Justice

NPR: How Does ‘Going Green’ Impact Black America?

Green Collar Jobs Report Released by Raquel Rivera Pinderhughes, Professor of Urban Studies, San Francisco State University

Ansel Adams photo titled The Tetons and the Snake River (1942) Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the National Park Service.

The June 2007 issue of Smithsonian magazine features an article by Tony Perrottet called “Jewel of the Tetons,” which describes the secretive mission of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to purchase private properties at the base of the Tetons with the intent of donating the land to the government for permanent protection.

Despite philanthropic intentions, the campaign to purchase over 35,000 acres was mired in 20 years of anti-park controversy, distrust, and debate. It was not until 1950 when Rockefeller successfully donated 33,562 acres to the National Park Service, enlarging the Grand Teton National Park and protecting important wildlife corridors and the mountain grandeur from unsightly commercial development. The family retained the final 3,300 acres, the JY Ranch, as a Rockefeller family retreat until John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s son Laurance began gifting it to the park over several years. On May 26, 2001, Laurance S. Rockefeller donated the remaining 1,106-acre land (also known as the Laurance Spelman Rockefeller Preserve). The park service expects the formal transfer to be complete by later this summer and open to the public in September 2007. With this gift, “the entire JY property becomes part of America’s conservation heritage and marks another milestone in the Rockefeller legacy of stewardship and philanthropy,” writes the park service.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Haases are another one of the nation’s most philanthropic families. Julian Guthrie published an excellent article called “The Haas Legacy – How one family’s generosity and commitment to civic life are transforming the Bay Area.”

The descendants of Levi Strauss (Elise Haas was a great niece of Levi Strauss) and branches of the Haas family operate five independent foundations. The Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, established in 1953, has the largest annual giving and was key to the restoration of the former military airfield Crissy Field, along San Francisco’s north shore (completed in 2001). Recently, I visited the tidal marsh and was in awe of the native coastal dune plants flourishing there and the numerous waterfowl and other marsh birds. I remember when the silver dune lupine, sand verbena, and coastal sagewort were new plantings. It was hard to envision the reemergence of the native coastal dune community that once thrived here in the time of the Ohlone. The scene there now is a drastic transformation from the toxic wasteland it once was.

In April, the Haas Jr. Fund made another major philanthropic gift to the Presidio in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) to support the “Post to Park”conversion. This project involves the implementation of a comprehensive 24-mile pedestrian, hiking, and bicycle trail network at the Presidio and the revitalization of the Presidio’s Rob Hill Campground.