Check out Huey Johnson’s reaction to the news that Pt. Reyes will finally return Drakes Bay to marine wilderness status — as envisioned by the park’s creators in the 1970′s. RRI’s short video expresses our gratitude to Interior Secretary Salazar for his decision to protect wilderness.Click here to see RRI’s short video on the importance of a Drakes Bay Wilderness

Empowers Citizens, Unlocks Information, Improves Water Management

SACRAMENTO, CA – Former Brown Administration Resources Secretary Huey Johnson, president of the Resource Renewal Institute, today unveiled the first-ever public “California Water Rights Atlas.” This online tool enables citizens, policymakers, media and others to view thousands of current California water rights claims. RRI is a nonprofit, public interest organization, and is providing this “gift of information” to the people of California free of charge. The Water Rights Atlas addresses California’s water crisis by opening, organizing, and distilling dysfunctional state-level data to improve efficiency and access for water resource managers and the public. (more…)

Cecil Andrus served as the secretary of Interior during the Carter Administration and as the governor of Idaho for 14 years. Cecil tells us two stories: about how he was able to get two major pieces of legislation passed, the Alaska Lands Act that protected 103 million acres, and the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act that protected five important wild rivers in Northern California. Cecil shares a hunting story, one that reveals important life lessons.

Check out his interview along with dozens of others at: http://theforcesofnature.com/videos/

It is with dismay that Defense of Place takes note of the potential betrayal of the essence of the Ballona Wetlands in Southern California with the intrusion of concrete and steel onto a landscape set aside for marshland restoration. The betrayal is that of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which seems to be willing to enter into a $50 million project with the Annenberg Foundation to develop on lands that were rescued a decade ago through a $139 million bond measure in partnership with the Trust for Public Land.

Defense of Place is stunned at the boldness with which the Annenberg Foundation again is seeking to buy access to lands held in the Public Trust for a project that ultimately has nothing to do with the true nature of the Ballona Wetlands and its wildlife habitat. The image of a 46,000-square-foot interpretive center within the protected wetlands ecosystem is perplexing enough, but the inclusion of a planned domestic animal adoption and care program strains credulity. However, it appears that the detemination of the Annenberg Foundation to build such a center on public land will not ebb, even after their withdrawing the (seemingly) same project proposal for Lower Point Vicente Park in Rancho Palos Verdes in 2011. In that case, courageous federal and state park officials held fast to the deeds protecting the parkland. It is disheartening that the Fish and Wildlife would not display such valor, but would barter away parcels of the Ballona Wetlands and flout their mission to sustain a natural resource in their care.

Defense of Place works to sustain parklands and open spaces nationwide whose protective deeds are contravened for development or predatory changes in use. The settings and purposes vary, but inevitably the explanations for the breaches in protection carry coded words meant to mollify citizens when their public asset is bartered away. For instance, “Interpretive Centers” have become the Orwellian substitute for office buildings and administrative headquarters, and PowerPoint diagrams of facility footprints artfully mask the reality of the infrastructure and peripheral impacts. In addition, the guardians of protected lands regularly excuse the land surrender with the familiar, “It is already degraded.”

However, the spins and explanations are increasingly being met with skepticism – and government agencies, municipalities and institutions are finding it harder and harder to work under the radar – due to the courage and diligence of individuals and groups working to defend irreplaceable places.

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