#San Gabriel Mountains National Monument

[eopederson]

Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi), San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, California, 1990.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the LA Times:

President Biden on Thursday expanded San Gabriel Mountains National Monument by nearly a third in an action that was widely praised by the Indigenous leaders, politicians, conservationists and community organizers who had long fought for the enlargement of the protected natural area that serves as the backyard of the Los Angeles Basin.

The president also signed a proclamation expanding Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument by adding the 13,696-acre Molok Luyuk, or Condor Ridge, to the 330,000-acre swath of rolling oak woodlands, lush conifer forests and dramatic rock formations along Northern California’s inner Coast Range.

Biden’s actions put in place stronger federal protections for areas that were left out when each monument was initially set aside by then-President Obama, in 2014 in the case of the San Gabriel Mountains and the following year for Berryessa Snow Mountain. Advocates say the designations will expand underserved communities’ access to open space and better preserve sacred and historic Indigenous cultural sites. The move also came as Biden has sought to boost his conservation record heading into the presidential election.

“It’s a huge deal on so many levels,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who had introduced legislation that would have expanded both national monuments. That legislation remains active, but it lacks the Republican support in Congress to bring it to the finish line, he said.

As a result, Padilla and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) last year urged Biden to bypass Congress and instead issue a presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which the president did Thursday.

The move adds nearly 106,000 acres to the 346,000-acre San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, which sits within an hour’s drive of 18 million people, extending its boundaries to the edge of San Fernando Valley neighborhoods including Sylmar and Lake View Terrace, as well as the city of Santa Clarita. Those are some of the hottest regions within L.A. County, and home to communities of color that have historically lacked access to nearby green spaces, said Belén Bernal, executive director of Nature for All, a coalition of environmental and community groups that has long campaigned for more parks and safe outdoor opportunities, including the expansion of the monument.

“As a Latina, I believe that we, people of color, given our income status and that a lot of our family members are immigrants to this country, we have been deprived of nearby nature in our neighborhoods,” Bernal said.

[beemovieerotica]

struggling with how to word this, but putting it out there anyway:

i can fully understand the posts on here from a lot of americans being tired of "vote blue no matter who" posts when the #1 thing that people are constantly (and sometimes only?) addressing is how the republican party is going treat trans/queer people if elected.

it's part of an unfortunate pattern of prioritizing the effects on a demographic that includes white + upper class people, when people of color and those in the global south are actively and currently being killed or relegated to circumstances in which their survival is very unlikely

it is genuinely exhausting to witness this, and i was also on the fence about even participating in voting because i a) felt like it didn't matter and b) every time i voiced being frustrated with the current state of the country, white queer people would immediately step in with "but what about trans people!" -> (i am mixed race trans man)

and i say this with unending patience toward people who do this, because i know that it's not something they actively think about. but everyone already knows how the republican party is going to treat queer people. you are probably talking to another queer person when you bring up project 2025. the issue is that, for those of us who aren't white, or for those of us who are but who are conscious of ongoing struggles for people of color worldwide, the safety of people around the world feels more urgent than our own. that is the calculation that's being made.

you're not going to win votes for the democratic party by dismissing or minimizing these realities and by continually centering (white) queer people.

very few people on here and twitter are actually talking about issues beyond queer rights that concern people of color, or how the two administrations differ on these issues instead of constantly circling back to single-issue politics. this isn't an exhaustive list. but these are the issues that have actually altered my perspective and motivated me to the point of committing to casting a vote

the biden administration has been engaged in a years-long fight to allow new applicants to DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program that allows undocumented individuals who arrived as children to remain in the country) after the Trump administration attempted to terminate it. the program is in limbo currently because of the actions of Trump-backed judges, with those who applied before the ruling being allowed to stay, but no new applications are being processed. Trump has repeatedly toyed with the idea of just deporting the 1.8 million people, but he continues to change his mind depending on whatever the fuck goes on in his head. he cannot be relied on to be sympathetic toward people of hispanic descent or to guarantee that DREAMers will be allowed stay in the country. biden + a democratic controlled congress will allow legal challenges to the DACA moratorium to gain ground.

the biden administration is open to returning and protecting portions of culturally important indigenous land in a way that the trump administration absolutely does not give a fuck. as of may 2024, they have established seven national monuments with plans to expand the San Gabriel Monument where the Gabrielino, Kizh / Tongva, the Chumash, Kitanemuk, Serrano, and Tataviam reside. the Berryessa Snow Mountain is also on the list, as a sacred region to the Patwin.

i'm recognizing that the US's plans for clean energy have often come into conflict with tribal sovereignty, and the biden administration could absolutely do better in navigating this. but the unfortunate dichotomy is that there would be zero commitment or investment in clean energy under a trump-led government, which poses an astounding existential threat and destabilizing force to the global south beyond any human-to-human conflict. climate change has caused and will continue to cause resource shortages, greater natural disasters, and near-lethal living conditions for those in the tropics - and the actions of the highest energy consumers (US) are to blame. biden has funneled billions of dollars into climate change mitigation and clean energy generation - trump does not believe that any of it matters.

i may circle back to this and add more as it comes up, but i'm hoping that those who are skeptical / discouraged / tired of the white queer-centric discourse on tumblr and twitter can at least process some of this. please feel free to add more articles + points but i'm asking for the sake of this post to please focus on issues that affect people of color.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #16

April 26-May 3 2024

President Biden announced $3 billion to help replace lead pipes in the drinking water system. Millions of Americans get their drinking water through lead pipes, which are toxic, no level of lead exposure is safe. This problem disproportionately affects people of color and low income communities. This first investment of a planned $15 billion will replace 1.7 million lead pipe lines. The Biden Administration plans to replace all lead pipes in the country by the end of the decade.

President Biden canceled the student debt of 317,000 former students of a fraudulent for-profit college system. The Art Institutes was a for-profit system of dozens of schools offering degrees in video-game design and other arts. After years of legal troubles around misleading students and falsifying data the last AI schools closed abruptly without warning in September last year. This adds to the $29 billion in debt for 1.7 borrowers who wee mislead and defrauded by their schools which the Biden Administration has done, and a total debt relief for 4.6 million borrowers so far under Biden.

President Biden expanded two California national monuments protecting thousands of acres of land. The two national monuments are the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, which are being expanded by 120,000 acres. The new protections cover lands of cultural and religious importance to a number of California based native communities. This expansion was first proposed by then Senator Kamala Harris in 2018 as part of a wide ranging plan to expand and protect public land in California. This expansion is part of the Administration's goals to protect, conserve, and restore at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

The Department of Transportation announced new rules that will require car manufacturers to install automatic braking systems in new cars. Starting in 2029 all new cars will be required to have systems to detect pedestrians and automatically apply the breaks in an emergency. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration projects this new rule will save 360 lives every year and prevent at least 24,000 injuries annually.

The IRS announced plans to ramp up audits on the wealthiest Americans. The IRS plans on increasing its audit rate on taxpayers who make over $10 million a year. After decades of Republicans in Congress cutting IRS funding to protect wealthy tax cheats the Biden Administration passed $80 billion for tougher enforcement on the wealthy. The IRS has been able to collect just in one year $500 Million in undisputed but unpaid back taxes from wealthy households, and shows a rise of $31 billion from audits in the 2023 tax year. The IRS also announced its free direct file pilot program was a smashing success. The program allowed tax payers across 12 states to file directly for free with the IRS over the internet. The IRS announced that 140,000 tax payers were able to use it over their target of 100,000, they estimated it saved $5.6 million in tax prep fees, over 90% of users were happy with the webpage and reported it quicker and easier than companies like H&R Block. the IRS plans to bring direct file nationwide next year.

The Department of Interior announced plans for new off shore wind power. The two new sites, off the coast of Oregon and in the Gulf of Maine, would together generate 18 gigawatts of totally clean energy, enough to power 6 million homes.

The Biden Administration announced new rules to finally allow DACA recipients to be covered by Obamacare. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is an Obama era policy that allows people brought to the United States as children without legal status to remain and to legally work. However for years DACA recipients have not been able to get health coverage through the Obamacare Health Care Marketplace. This rule change will bring health coverage to at least 100,000 uninsured people.

The Department of Health and Human Services finalized rules that require LGBTQ+ and Intersex minors in the foster care system be placed in supportive and affirming homes.

The Senate confirmed Georgia Alexakis to a life time federal judgeship in Illinois. This brings the total number of federal judges appointed by President Biden to 194. For the first time in history the majority of a President's nominees to the federal bench have not been white men.

[olowan-waphiya]

Tribes welcome return of ancestral lands

Tuesday, February 14, 2023 By Kevin Abourezk, Indianz.Com Kimberly Morales Johnson can’t help but imagine the land that today is Los Angeles as her ancestors would have seen it centuries ago. The Tongva people used the canyons of the San Gabriel Mountains as trading routes with the indigenous people of the Mojave desert. Last year, the Tongva reclaimed land in Los Angeles for the first time in almost 200 years after being forced to give up their lands and having their federal status terminated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1950.

Sharon Alexander, a non-Native woman, donated a one-acre property in Altadena, California, to the Tongva after learning about the #LandBack movement during the 2016 Democratic National Convention and discovering that the Tongva were the original inhabitants of Los Angeles.

Johnson, vice president of the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy, a nonprofit set up by the community to receive the land, said the tribe has big plans for the property. “It needs a lot of work, but we’re all dedicated to it,” she said.

In 2022, thousands of acres of private and public land in America were returned to the care of Native peoples. Many of these lands were returned to their original inhabitants, including the one-acre property in Los Angeles.

A website called the Decolonial Atlas created a “Land Back” map charting the locations of land returns that occurred last year. Other land returns that occurred last year include 40 acres around the Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark, the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre. The Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe bought the land for $500,000.

“It’s a small step towards healing and really making sure that we as a tribe are protecting our critical areas and assets,” Oglala Sioux Tribe President Kevin Killer told The Associated Press.

Although not a land return, the Biden administration last year signed an agreement giving five tribes – the Hopi, Navajo, Ute Mountain Ute, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, and Pueblo of Zuni – greater oversight of the 1.3-million acre Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.

Last year, the Rappahannock Tribe celebrated the return of more than 400 acres along the Rappahannock River that is home to a historic tribal village named Pissacoack and a four-mile stretch of white-colored cliffs.

“Your ancestors cherished these lands for many generations and despite centuries of land disputes and shifting policies, your connections to these cliffs and to this river remain unbroken,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said at an event celebrating the land return. One of the largest land returns last year involved the purchase of more than 28,000 acres by the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa Tribe in Minnesota.

The Conservation Fund, an environmental nonprofit, sold the land to the tribe after purchasing the land from a lumber manufacturer in 2020. Emilee Nelson, Minnesota associate state director of The Conservation Fund, said her organization bought the land from the PotlatchDeltic Corporation after the company decided to divest of much of its Minnesota land holdings. The Conservation Fund bought 72,000 acres from the company, including 28,000 acres that were within the Bois Forte Reservation. The Boise Fort Band lost the land following passage of the Dawes Act of 1887, which led to the allotment of the land to private landowners. “Where this land was located made a lot of sense for the tribe to own it,” Nelson said.

However, he said, tribes don’t always want to purchase land or even accept a land donation, especially if they don’t think they’ll be able to put it into federal trust status. He offered advice to those considering donating their land to a tribe. “If you want to make a donation, sell the land and make a donation,” he said.

As for the one-acre land donation to the Tongva, Kimberly Morales Johnson said the tribe plans to use the land to create a community center where it will be able to host cultural workshops and where Tongva people will be able to gather plants sacred to their people, including the acorns from the oak trees on the property.

“This is about self-determination and sovereignty,” she said. The tribe is also allowing a tribal artist to live on the land and take care of it, she said. The Tongva have also begun working to return Native plants to the property and remove invasive species.

“This whole LandBack movement is rooted in healing, and instead of looking at land as a commodity, we’re looking at it as a way to have a relationship with the land and with each other and bringing back our traditions, our language, our food, our culture,” she said.

[mezzopieno-news]

AUMENTANO GLI HABITAT PROTETTI IN NORDAMERICA

Il 2 maggio 2024 il presidente degli Stati Uniti d’America Biden ha ampliato l’area del San Gabriel Mountains National Monument: 105mila acri in più per proteggerne la storia culturale, le caratteristiche geologiche e la diversità ecologica. San Gabriel Mountains è infatti stato designato monumento nel 2014 dall’allora Presidente Obama per preservarne l’ecosistema minacciato dal turismo di massa. L’espansione protegger�� Bear Divide, un canyon su una cresta in California che viene utilizzato dagli uccelli migratori mentre si dirigono dall’America Centrale verso l’Artico. Preserverà l’habitat per gli orsi neri, i leoni di montagna, i coyote e i cervi muli, insieme a specie rare e in via di estinzione, tra cui la pecora bighorn di Nelson, le rane di montagna dalle zampe gialle.

Negli Stati Uniti i Monumenti nazionali vengono istituiti direttamente dal presidente degli Stati Uniti d’America; il primo monumento nazionale dichiarato fu la Torre del Diavolo per opera di Theodore Roosevelt nel 1906 attraverso l’Antiquities Act, la legge che fornisce una protezione giuridica per le risorse culturali e naturali di interesse storico o scientifico sui terreni federali. L’area di San Gabriel Mountain non è solo importante dal punto di vista della biodiversità ma è anche patria di diverse culture indigene. Per migliaia di anni popoli come i Kizh, i Tongva, i Chumash Kitanemuk, Serrano e i Tataviam hanno vissuto in questa zona. Oggi i loro discendenti continuano a utilizzare l’area per scopi cerimoniali e per la raccolta di piante tradizionali importanti per la lavorazione del vimini, il cibo e la medicina.

___________________

Fonte: US Forest Service; foto di Pexels

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[rjhamster]

Expand the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument!

Expand the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument! Act now Dear Peter, Over 18 million Angelenos rely on the San Gabriel Mountains for open space in dense and polluted Greater Los Angeles. In fact, they account for 70 percent of the county’s open space! Yet only a limited area is permanently protected. Together, we change that. Tell President Biden it’s time to expand the San Gabriel…

[denverworksheet]

California Congress members call for expansion of San Gabriel Mountains National Monument

The proposal would increase the monument by roughly a third and extend its boundaries to the back door of Sylmar, Santa Clarita and Pacoima.

from California https://ift.tt/iWGExZX

[xtruss]

Photography: Powerful Ansel Adams Show Centers His Love For Nature – And The Peril It’s In

San Francisco showcase brings together the photographer’s works alongside contemporary artists who build on it

— Gabrielle Canon in San Francisco | Saturday 8 April 2023

Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984) The Tetons and Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942 The Lane Collection. Photograph: Ansel Adams/The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

From towering granite monoliths to textured tree trunks, Ansel Adams’s renowned black and white photographs have offered generations the chance to see the beauty and importance of nature through his eyes.

Now a new exhibit at San Francisco’s de Young fine arts museum gives viewers a new way to connect to the artist himself. Ansel Adams in Our Time, on display from 8 April through 23 July, brings together more than a 100 of Adams’s works alongside 23 contemporary photographers who reflect and build on it. The exhibition also returns Adams to the city where he launched his career and continues the conversations he began about conservation and national parks in his first exhibition at San Francisco’s de Young museum nearly a century ago.

Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984) Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, 1960. Photograph: Ansel Adams/The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

The exhibition will include some of Adams’s most famous works, including a photograph of Half Dome under the moon and a beloved self-portrait featuring the artist’s shadow – complete with his arm extended to the sky, light meter in hand – against a rock face in Monument Valley.

Alongside, the gallery walls will also portray perspectives from new artists whose photos build on Adams’s work while seeking broader reflections on the natural world and the way people engage and impact it.

These include collages created by Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe, who layer photographs from Adams and others over more modern captures, leaving viewers with panoramic views of Yosemite through time. Catherine Opie’s photographs sharply contrasts Adams by casting similar subjects in a colored blur while CJ Heyliger, the exhibit’s youngest artist, showcased beauty in the mundane by focusing on details in landscapes less sought after, like glass scattered across the desert.

“It is great to see contemporary photographers taking up his legacy and looking at it, criticizing it, and finding new ways to approach these problems that Adams was addressing in his photographs years ago,” said Sarah Mackay, an assistant curator for the show.

The exhibition includes Ansel Adams’s work in conversations with new artists’ work, such as this piece by Mark Klett & Byron Wolfey: “View from the handrail at Glacier Point overlook, connecting views from Ansel Adams to Carleton Watkins, 2003.” Photograph: Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe/Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe, courtesy Etherton Gallery

‘Ahead of His Time’

A master technician, Adams stewarded his images through an arduous photographic process, starting with lugging large cameras up steep terrain, enduring long waits for good light, and finally the metered dance – set to the beat of the metronome he once relied on as a musician – of darkroom development that granted him ultimate control over the final outcome. But in his writings and recordings, Adams credits his impact not to his technique, but to his eye.

“The whole world is, to me, very much ‘alive,’ all the little growing things, even the rocks,” Adams once wrote. “I can’t look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life – the things going on – within them,” he said. “The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood.”

Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984) Lake near Muir Pass, Kings Canyon National Park, California, 1933. Photograph: Ansel Adams/The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984) Lake McDonald, Evening, Glacier National Park, Montana, 1942. Photograph: The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

His work has taken on renewed urgency as the iconic locations he photographed across the American west – including Death Valley, Grand Teton and Yosemite – grapple with a changing climate.

Positioning Adams’s work alongside that of contemporary environmental artists offers visitors a new framing of the climate crisis and the importance of conservation.

“The thing I find so exciting is realizing how ahead of his time Ansel Adams was in terms of thinking about these issues,” said Karen Haas, lane senior curator of Photographs Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Adams is perhaps most associated with Yosemite national park, and his images of its sweeping views and soaring granite slabs through the seasons helped shape the park’s identity while it in turn shaped him as a photographer.

“The Whole World is, to Me, Very Much ‘Alive,’ All the Little Growing Things, Even the Rocks” — Ansel Adams

Armed with what he called the “spiritual-emotional” connection to the park and other wild landscapes, Adams’s portrayal helped ensure the national parks would remain protected places. In 1975 he took his message to the White House, gifting President Gerald Ford with a print of Yosemite. “Now, Mr President, every time you look at this picture,” he urged, “I want you to remember your obligation to the national parks.”

National Parks in Peril

Today those parks remain cherished but also in peril, caught between the pressures of extreme weather and surging tourism. Photography that spurred appreciation for the wilderness has also helped flood these areas with footsteps. Growing crowds and tourist-catering amenities are increasingly at odds with conservation efforts as parks push past their capacity.

Adams saw the problems unfolding even in his time and often resisted what he called “resortism” in the parks and their development for public use. In his images he typically erases signs of people to offer a more pristine view of the landscapes.

Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984) Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, about 1937. Photograph: Ansel Adams/The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

“We see Ansel Adams photographs and we don’t see them peopled,” Mackay said. “He is in some instances removing them from his photographs.”

Yosemite – one of the most visited parks in the nation – is a quintessential example of the difficult balancing act between enabling access and ensuring the lands are preserved for generations to come.

The past year has put the extreme seasonal swings that Yosemite faces on full display. In summer the park was shrouded in smoke from nearby wildfires, followed by a winter of snowstorms that closed down the park for weeks and damaged the winding mountain roads leading into the valley.

“The Thing I Find So Exciting is Realizing How Ahead of His Time Ansel Adams Was in Terms of Thinking About These Issues.” — Karen Haas

The curators feel strongly that Adams would have had a perspective to share about how these issues have unfolded. That’s why, they said, including new artistic voices has elevated the potential for impact.

Housing Development, San Bruno Mountains, San Francisco, circa 1966. Photograph: Ansel Adams/The Lane Collection © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

“It’s bleak realizing how little has changed and how much work we still have to do,” said Haas reflecting on the enormous scale of problems posed by a warming world. But, she added, the exhibit has brought her hope, with its potential to both inspire awe and action. It’s a feeling she hopes viewers share.

“With this exhibition we can finally put this great master in conversation,” she said, “and let these contemporary figures show us the concerns that continue today.”

[valhikes]

Angeles National Forest, California.

The hike out to Big Horn Mine is flat along an old road, but not quite so easy as one might expect. I got past the washouts to see it and managed to find a shaft full of water on the way out and Vincent's cabin on the return. A good, but short, hike or relics of the past. From September 2011.

[eopederson]

Summit of Mount San Antonio ("Old Baldy," 3,068 m), San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, 1993.

Despite the altitude, a great hike in good weather!

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

President Biden plans to expand the perimeters of two national monuments in California, protecting mountains and meadows in a remote area between Napa and Mendocino as well as a rugged stretch east of Los Angeles, two people familiar with the administration’s plans said Thursday.

The San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument will each get new boundaries designed to protect land of cultural significance to Native American tribes, as well as biodiversity and wildlife corridors, said the people, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly.

The San Gabriel monument encompasses 342,177 acres of the Angeles National Forest and 4,002 acres of neighboring San Bernardino National Forest. Mr. Biden intends to expand the monument by approximately 110,000 acres.

The Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument includes nearly 331,000 acres of protected land in parts of Napa, Yolo, Solano, Lake, Colusa, Glenn and Mendocino counties, from Pacific Ocean beaches to a 7,000-foot mountain. It would be expanded by about 13,753 acres under Mr. Biden’s plan.

Both monuments were created by former President Barack Obama under the Antiquities Act, a 1906 law that authorizes the president to protect lands and waters for the benefit of all Americans. California lawmakers and tribal organizations have pressed Mr. Biden to make the declaration as part of the administration’s land conservation plan.

[alluneedissunshine]

Desert Wave by Tim Lawnicki Via Flickr: Summer cirrus clouds above the Mojave Desert. Taken from Mount Harwood, in the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.

[countryofthecanyons]

This is called flooded with sunlight in the real estate biz.

[pcttrailsidereader]

VERY VERY IMPORTANT - all PCT users and lovers pay attention

The Department of Interior led by Ryan Zinke is reviewing 22 National Monuments and 5 Marine National Monuments, created or expended between the years 1996 - 2016.  What is at risk? These Monuments may be reduced in size or eliminated all together.  Three of the Monuments encompass stretches of the PCT -- Sand to Snow National Monument (includes, among other features, Whitewater River), San Gabriel Mountains National Monument (includes, among other features, Mt. Baden-Powell), and Cascade Siskiyou National Monument (includes, among other features, Pilot Rock near Ashland, Oregon). There is a 60-day public comment period (ending July 10).  It is critical that PCT users make their feelings known.  You can do so by:

1)  enter into your browser (or follow this link)  http://www.regulations.gov

2)  under the ‘What’s Trending’ column on the left side of the screen, you can double click on Review of Certain National Monuments Established Since 1996; Notice of Opportunity for Public Comment

3)  click on "Comment Now"

4)  make your comment

Here is what I wrote:

At the age of 62, I finished walking the Pacific Crest Trail. The Trail passes through three of the Monuments under review:  Cascade Siskiyou, Sand to Snow, and San Gabriel Mountains.  Just this past April I was again walking through the mountains of Southern California from the Mexican border to the San Jacintos, four years after first backpacking in these arid mountains.  What is striking to me is just how aggressively development continues to push, push, push into these fragile desert landscapes.  Horse ranches, greenhouses, homes, even housing developments and the associated roads, utility lines, and commercial establishments have sprung up where they did not exist even 4 years ago. Once development occurs, it is extremely difficult to undo it.  The Sand and Snow and San Gabriel Mountains Monuments offer modest but critical protection from the sprawling reaches of Los Angeles and the Palm Springs/Palm Desert communities.

The landscape is extraordinarily vulnerable.  The desert holds its scars for a very long time.  You can see this impact as you walk near the Whitewater River in the Sand to Snow Monument.  Or, from the top of Mt. Baden-Powell, in the San Bernardino Mountains Monument where the layer of pollution from the L.A. Basin often offers a palpable layer extending far to the southwest.

While not surrounded by massive population centers like the Sand to Snow and San Gabriel Mountains, the Cascade Siskiyou Monument is threatened by the rapidly growing Ashland-Medford communities of the Rogue River Valley.  Homes are pushing their way farther and farther into the mountains around these communities. I believe that the Cascade Siskiyou Monument not only protect iconic features like Pilot Rock, but helps preserve the recreational opportunities for this region of southern Oregon.

I have lived on the North Coast of California just south of Redwood National Park for more than three decades. I think that the creation of Redwood National Park provides an object lesson when insufficient land is protected.  The Park, in deference to local logging companies, initially limited much of the protection to a narrow strip of old growth redwood along Redwood Creek (named the 'worm' for its size and shape).  Quickly we learned, as surrounding lands were aggressively logged and Redwood Creek clogged with sediment that we had to preserve the broader eco-system . . . not just a small patch of trees.  By the time we learned that, the cost of buying back the watershed and its restoration was immense.  

Do not give up these Monuments for short-term employment and temporary gain.  I would love to walk some of these lands with you as I know that you agree with what I have seen and learned.