With this week’s introduction of thousands of fish into the fallow flooded rice fields owned by fourth-generation rice farmer, Charles Mathews, Fish in the Fields continues to expand its project of establishing a profitable – and methane-reducing – rotation crop for California’s half-million acres of rice cultivation.

Your comments are needed to the National Park Service’s (NPS) Draft General Management Plan Amendment for our national seashore. Under the plan, fully one-third of Point Reyes National Seashore will be dedicated to cattle ranching for decades to come. The NPS’s own Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) enumerates the impacts of cattle ranching to endangered species, wildlife habitat, water quality, and the climate, but ignores these impacts to satisfy 24 ranchers who sold their land to the public nearly 60 years ago and still run their cattle in this national park.

Ranches and cattle grazing comprise one-third of the Seashore’s 71,000 acres. Congress established Point Reyes National Seashore in 1962 “to save and preserve, for the purposes of public recreation, benefit, and inspiration, a portion of the diminishing seashore of the United States that remains undeveloped.” The ranchers were well compensated for their land and it was agreed that they could remain in the park for their lifetime or 25 years. They never left.

At California’s magnificent Point Reyes National Seashore, the Park Service is about to approve the expansion of dairy and beef ranching for decades to come—and killing any native Tule elk that get in the way. Congress established Point Reyes National Seashore to protect a uniquely beautiful wild place for the enjoyment of the American people. The Seashore was not created to reward private ranchers with never-ending below-market leases that endanger the park’s fragile environment.

Your comments are critical to the NPS’s Draft Plan for cattle ranching at Point Reyes National Seashore. Dairy and beef cattle ranching has a long history at Pt. Reyes. When the Seashore was established in 1962 there was opposition from the ranching families, but they eventually agreed to a buyout-leaseback arrangement with the National Park Service. The ranchers were generously compensated for their land (more than $300 million in today’s dollars), and it was agreed that they could remain in park for their lifetime or 25 years. 

The National Park Service (NPS) has released its Draft General Management Plan (GMPA) and Environmental Impacts Statement (EIS) for ranching at Point Reyes National Seashore. This is the first time in the park’s history that ranching has been subjected to a full review of its environmental impacts, and the first time the public has had an opportunity to submit comments to the park’s ranching policy. The public has until September 23 to send comments.

The National Park Service (NPS) at Point Reyes National Seashore says it plans to release its Draft General Management Plan Amendment (GMPA) and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the impacts of commercial ranching at the National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) in August. The public will have 45 days to comment on the way the National Seashore should be managed going forward.

Event organizers reached out to us about publicizing the Mindful Eating Film Festival and Expo after the posters they put up around the county were torn down. Some ranchers strongly objected to the event and screening such films as “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret,” and "The Shame of Point Reyes” which are critical of ranching. In response, organizers have invited Seashore ranchers to participate on a panel with the filmmakers to discuss the issues raised in the films.

Rep. Jared Huffman’s bill to permanently instate ranching at Point Reyes National Seashore and eliminate the park’s free-roaming Tule Elk herds failed to reach the Senate floor for a vote in the final days of 2018. Had it passed, HR-6687 would have changed the law and the national seashore forever. With the Democrats now in the majority in the House, the former chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, Rob Bishop (R-UT)  has been replaced by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), who is far friendlier to conservation and public lands. Huffman continues to serve on this important Committee and heads the Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans.

HR 6687 is up for a vote in the Senate this week. Please let your Senators know that you oppose this bill not only for its plans to eliminate Tule elk from the Pt Reyes National Seashore but for the secrecy under which the bill was advanced. By contrast, the General Management Plan Amendment process underway is transparent. It gives the public the opportunity to review the park service's proposed plans, provides for public comment, and requires that planning decisions be based on an Environmental Impact Statement. HR 6687 preempts that process. Please take a moment now to call the Senators below to ask them to allow the GMPA process to play out and to oppose HR 6687.

The National Park Service has published its intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for its General Management Plan Amendment (GMPA) for more than 28,000 acres leased for cattle grazing at the Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area. This is the first step in the GMPA planning process. Your comments to the National Park Service Public Scoping website could determine the fate of the park and its wildlife for generations to come. Public comments to the draft plan must be submitted by November 30. 
 

They say politics makes strange bedfellows, and that’s apparently the case with Rep. Jared Huffman and Rep. Rob Bishop, the Utah congressman who, in a giveaway to Big Oil, cut a million protected acres from the Bears Ears National Monument. Bishop champions “unlocking” public lands so that drillers, miners and cattlemen can feast upon them, and wants to “return” federal lands to the states for development.

Much has changed in the nearly 40 years since the Point Reyes National Seashore General Management Plan was adopted— the effects of climate change;  a growing list of endangered and threatened species; record numbers of visitors to the national parks; a $12 billion backlog of unfunded maintenance throughout the National Park System.