National Parks Traveler

Op-Ed | Politics And Privilege At Point Reyes National Seashore

By Susan Ives

Should Point Reyes National Seashore, the only national seashore on the Pacific Coast, be managed for preservation, or should cattle ranching be allowed to intrude on the national park?/NPS

Ansel Adams, the venerated photographer of America’s national parks and wild lands famously remarked, “It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.” He would make the same observation today.

Despite an alarming report by the United Nation’s that humanity has only a decade to avert a climate disaster, the National Park Service has succeeded in its long-contested plan to perpetuate commercial beef and dairy at the only national seashore on the Pacific Coast.  

We are now experiencing first-hand the effects that scientists have been warning about for decades—record high temperatures; extreme drought—the worst in more than a century; less and less water to ensure the basic function of ecosystems.

The NPS projects sea levels to rise by 3 feet by the year 2100 at Point Reyes National Seashore, while allowing some 5,000 cattle to feed off the park. The cattle are by far the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions at the seashore, more than that of the cars that deliver more than 2.5 million visitors to the park every year.

Over the objections of tens of thousands of Americans, the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior have rededicated 28,000 acres of national park land to the use and benefit of an entitled few, who were paid the equivalent of $380 million when they sold their land to the Park Service 50 years ago, and through political maneuvers continue to run cattle in the seashore. It’s not clear what the public gets out of the latest deal that the Park Service struck that keeps two dozen wealthy ranchers on the seashore for decades to come.

A 38-year NPS employee, Craig Kenkel arrived at the seashore in the final days of the Trump administration by way of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park, where he oversaw  lands leased out to farmers. As the designated closer on the contentious Point Reyes ranching plan, Kenkel’s job before heading into retirement is to convince us that the outcome of the years-long performative planning process, in his words, “strikes the right balance.”  

The plan, which cost taxpayers millions of dollars, has incited thousands of public comments; letters from hundreds of scientists, experts and stakeholder organizations and a hundred thousand signatures to petitions opposed to the plan. The plan the Park Service delivered is (nothing other than) what the ranchers have demanded all along: 20-year, non-competitive leases for themselves and their offspring, more livestock, diverse income streams to keep them in business as demand for beef and dairy wanes, and fewer elk.

The NPS offers no scientific justification for the ranching—the Environmental Impact Statement cites overgrazing, air and water pollution, GHG emissions, habitat destruction and loss of public access. Nor does it provide economic analysis of the millions in public subsidies that have kept these marginal ranches operating on one-third of a national park.

U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, who serves on numerous House caucuses including for national parks, climate, water, labor and working families, Native Americans, and the California coast—all of which relate to public concerns at the seashore-- is well positioned to be a champion for a national park in his own backyard. But Huffman says that the two-dozen ranches deserve to stay in the seashore—preferably forever— claiming they are “historic.” His argument might be more credible but for the thousands of years of Coast Miwok presence virtually erased from the NPS’s version of the seashore’s history. 

Big Ag powerbrokers like the Public Lands Council and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association share Huffman’s view.  Meanwhile, more than a hundred organizations including the Coast Miwok Tribal Council of Marin, ACLU, Hispanic Access Fund, National Parks and Conservation Association, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, Center for Biological Diversity, PETA, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, California Native Plant Society and Resource Renewal Institute, oppose the NPS’s giveaway to the chosen few who, thanks to this plan, ranchers are now more entrenched in the park than ever. 

It will take more than promises from the NPS to convince the public that the seashore is in good hands, at last. The Biden administration, which promises to put science back into policymaking, can’t be counted upon, based on its approval of this insider deal. It’s up to the public to stay informed and hold our politicians and the National Park Service accountable.

Susan Ives, former vice president at the Trust for Public Land, is co-founder of Restore Point Reyes Seashore. She lives in Mill Valley, California.