Today, June 5, is World Environment Day and official launch of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration— a rallying cry to reverse the degradation of our planet and help Nature heal. 
At RRI, we’re reminded of our beloved colleague, Professor Wangari Maathai, (1940-2011), founder of the Greenbelt Movement of Kenya. As a scientist, a government critic, and an environmental activist, Wangari endured gender bias and persecution by those in power. And yet, she persisted—planting more than 51 million trees in Kenya, restoring forests and improving the lives of rural women across Africa. 

My life has been indescribably enriched by public lands, and one of the most beautiful on earth is fast losing its wildness: Point Reyes National Seashore. Tragically, the very organization charged with protecting Point Reyes, the national park, is hastening its demise. 

Located in the densely populated San Francisco Bay Area, Point Reyes is a refuge and wilderness destination for locals and visitors from around the world. An internationally recognized biodiversity hotspot, Point Reyes stretches across thousands of acres of sandy dunes, rocky beaches, coastal grasslands, and expansive marine habitats.

On April 22, the California Coastal Commission held a virtual hearing to discuss the impact of dairy and cattle ranching at Point Reyes National Seashore. Superintendent Craig Kenkel began his presentation with the words, “Point Reyes is the ancestral home of the Coast Miwok.” Kenkel spent the rest of his talk advocating for a Park Service proposal to increase the terms of ranching leases from five to 20 years. This, despite the findings of an Environmental Impact Statement released by the National Park Service last year which revealed multiple harms caused by 150 years of bovine-centric agriculture at the seashore.

The California Coastal Commission narrowly approved the consistency determination regarding the National Park Service (NPS) plans for ranching at Point Reyes National Seashore.  The Commissioner approved, by 5-4 vote the conditional concurrence recommended by Commission staff with additional amendments. Three additional amendments were unanimously adopted by the Commissioners.  

Citing an ongoing die-off of rare Tule elk at the Tomales Point Elk Reserve on Point Reyes National Seashore, conservation and animal advocacy groups today filed a formal petition with the National Park Service to remove an eight- foot-tall fence that confines the park’s main elk herd to a narrow peninsula that lacks adequate water and forage during droughts.

The National Park Service (NPS) has issued a press release revealing that 152 Tule elk, one-third of the Tomales Point herd, died at Point Reyes National Seashore.  The deaths occurred because elk were trapped behind an 8-foot fence that encloses the park’s Tule Elk Reserve, where the NPS confines the rare elk to keep them off parklands reserved for cattle.

Resource Renewal Institute (RRI) is thrilled to announce that our President, Deborah Moskowitz, and Director of Programs, Chance Cutrano, are recipients of a prestigious environmental award from Acterra, the respected Peninsula environmental organization that “brings people together to create local solutions for a healthy planet.”

A week before its public hearing before the California Coastal Commission, the National Park Service (NPS) withdrew its application seeking Commission approval for a controversial General Management Plan Amendment (GMPA) for ranching at Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation. The hearing has not been rescheduled.

It’s no secret that the Trump Administration is fast-tracking leases for drilling, logging, mining, and grazing on Americans’ public lands. The plan to extend ranching at Point Reyes National Seashore is no exception. Trump’s Department of Interior is intent on having the Record of Decision for this damaging plan signed, sealed and delivered before January 20, 2021. A final step in the process is the California Coastal Commission’s decision as to whether the National Park Service’s (NPS) plan for the Seashore is “consistent” with State laws protecting the coast.

As the Trump Administration continues to shuffle National Park Service personnel, Craig Kenkel has been named the Superintendent at Point Reyes National Seashore, replacing Superintendent Cecily Muldoon and a parade of Acting Superintendents.

Big thanks to all who submitted comments to the Draft Plan for Ranching at Point Reyes National Seashore! The NPS says it received 7,600 public comments to the plan!  This doesn’t include 700 comments that it refused to count collected by ForElk activists who spent months educating folks at farmers markets, film screenings, street fairs, and from their pop-up display outside the Point Reyes Visitor Center. Under the Trump administration censorship has become a growing trend in our government, including at the National Park Service.

The NPS has announced it final plan for Point Reyes National Seashore. The plan includes:

• Killing native Tule elk to support cattle ranchers

• Allowing more livestock in the Seashore

• Installing a 4-mile fence to keep elk off parklands leased for cattle

• Converting grasslands to commercial crops

• The public pays the bill

Resource Renewal Institute is proud to present our new film about Point Reyes National Seashore (8 minutes). Confined by a fence, Tule elk at Point Reyes National Seashore are in mortal danger as their water sources dry up. Half the herd died during the 2014-2016 drought. The park’s biologist referred to the die off as “letting nature take its course.” There’s nothing natural about denying water to confined animals. The just-released management plan (described below) calls for shooting wild elk to ensure enough grass for the nearly 6,000 cattle that graze the park.

As a boy I was witness, a fly on the wall, to the creation of Point Reyes National Seashore. Through the prolonged labor that preceded the birth of this extraordinary park, I became acquainted with the cast of characters who fought to bring it into existence—the first, and still the only—national seashore on the West Coast.

Record heat, severe drought conditions and wildfires raging out of control at Point Reyes National Seashore are raising concerns for the survival of the Seashore’s iconic Tule elk, a species found in no other national park. Point Reyes National Seashore is the site of a decades-long, successful recovery program for this unique subspecies of elk, endemic to California. Some 600 Tule elk now live in the park. The largest herd, about 400 elk, are kept behind an 8-foot fence at the Tomales Elk Reserve.  Last week, visitors to the reserve notified the National Park Service (NPS) that the ponds that supply drinking water to the confined elk had gone dry.

For six decades Huey D. Johnson was a steadfast force for nature, protecting wild rivers and securing millions of acres of land as Western Regional Director of the Nature Conservancy, and later as its president; as founder of the Trust for Public Land and as California’s Secretary of Resources, where he spearheaded “Investment for Prosperity,” a 100-year plan that became a blueprint for sustainability programs worldwide.

In comments to the NPS’s draft plan for ranching at the Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) the Resource Renewal Institute and Western Watershed Project raised concerns about the public health risks of Johne’s Disease, a contagious and chronic intestinal disease that afflicts cattle—particularly dairy cows.  Other ruminants, domestic and wild—deer, sheep, goats, antelopes, elk—also are susceptible.

Ranchers and politicians have long claimed that there is overwhelming public support for ranching at Point Reyes National Seashore and GGNRA, but have never offered any evidence to support their claim. The 7,627 public comments to the National Park Service’s (NPS) draft General Management Plan Amendment (GMPA) and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for ranching in these parks say otherwise.
 
More than 90 percent of the comments submitted to the NPS oppose ranching.

While the Bay Area has been quarantined over the coronavirus, activists in Northern California have been analyzing thousands of public comments sent to the National Park Service (NPS) in response to its controversial draft plan for cattle grazing at Point Reyes National Seashore. Their analysis reveals that more than 90 percent of the 7,627 comments submitted to the NPS oppose ranching in the national seashore. The final NPS plan—expected out this spring—will determine the future of ranching and wildlife in this national park for decades to come.

Driven to near extinction, northern elephant seals have made a remarkable comeback— from as few as 100 in the 1920s to about 124,000 in California today. The seals give birth at Point Reyes National Seashore, where the National Park Service goes to great lengths to protect them from human disturbance. If only the Park Service would show such concern for the Seashore’s other rare wildlife, like the park’s iconic Tule elk.