The public may be on the brink of seeing sweeping changes at one of its prized national seashores—and those changes will have been decided behind closed doors. That doesn’t sit right with me.
Among the changes may be the loss of housing and jobs for as many as 180 people who live in the Point Reyes National Seashore but have not had a seat in settlement talks over the future of ranching in the park. These people, mostly Latino, essentially have been told their lives don’t matter.
Secretive planning by public agencies is not what our legislators intended when they passed the National Environmental Policy Act, which provides for robust public input on proposed federal actions.
It’s not what the National Park Service intended when it undertook two planning processes under NEPA, engaging the public in its efforts to best govern the future of agriculture in the seashore.
When you submitted comments during those planning processes, you did so in good faith. After all, the two-dozen ranches and dairies on Point Reyes are held in the public trust. They are an integral part of the historic and cultural landscape that was preserved for the public in 1962. Congressional testimony shows that was the intent.
But money talks, and the plan approved by the park service under a rigorous public process was tossed aside by litigious nonprofits with big coffers. The ranchers are weighing buyouts supported by the Nature Conservancy, and our elected officials are sitting on the sidelines.
But why? Rep. Jared Huffman’s comments in news articles point to the same resignation that county supervisor Dennis Rodoni expressed to me personally. The logic goes: North Bay dairies are failing, so why not accept that the park dairies will close, too? “We should be looking at a transition plan,” Rodoni said.
We all know small farmers face economic and environmental challenges, but three dairies in the seashore are still selling organic milk. Our representatives have thrown in the towel on dairying and maybe agriculture on the coast altogether, declining to assert their interests—not only in preserving farming, but in keeping jobs, housing stock and an intact community.
That’s an abject failure of representation.
It wasn’t always so.
In the first lawsuit targeting ranching in the park, in 2016, Marin County persuaded the court that it had a rightful seat at the table. In a legal brief, the county wrote, “To the petitioners, livestock grazing within a national park is an anathema. To the County of Marin, grazing within the Point Reyes National Seashore is the opposite: a vital historic and cultural feature that was integral to the park’s founding and continues to be a highlight of this multifaceted public place.”
The county explained that federal and state coastal acts have policies to preserve agriculture, and it described the irreplaceable economic value provided by park ranches.
So what’s changed? In 2016, Steve Kinsey was our supervisor. Now we have Rodoni.
I spent last Sunday night under the stars to escape the heat of my house, but I was awakened by troubled thoughts. Must we accept the fate of a seashore emptied of its residents? Must we tolerate closed-door decision-making by our government?
As the sun rose, I embarked on a flurry of phone calls that hasn’t abated. I’ve reached out to our nonprofits, philanthropic groups and county representatives, to journalists and lawyers. Everyone was upset, but no one had made a meaningful attempt to assert our democratic and legal rights.
One of the people I called was Rodoni. I asked why he had chosen not to intervene in this lawsuit—other than because dairies are failing everywhere. His additional reasons jolted me.
He said that unlike in 2016, this litigation came with cash offers from the Nature Conservancy. “This is between private leaseholders, nonprofits and the park service,” he said. “What role does the county have?”
Whoa, Nellie. Is the county not being involved a reason for it not being involved? Are cash buyouts for the ranchers an acceptable basis for sweeping changes to a national park held in the public trust? And finally, do these buyouts present ranchers with a fair choice?
For years, these ranchers have told us they’ve been crippled by park policies and litigation. Outside environmental groups with no local foothold have pushed them up against a wall, and then said: Oh, but here’s an offer for you! A fair choice for ranchers would be between buyouts and a decent future where they are.
Should the public sit on the sidelines, with Rodoni and Huffman shrugging their shoulders, while private negotiations turn a public matter anti-democratic? Is this even legal?
Everything we’ve heard from those close to the settlement talks points to an outcome in which agriculture is shut down on Point Reyes. Whether or not you believe that should be the outcome, you should take offense at how it’s being achieved.
Locally, the closure of all the ranches and dairies would be catastrophic. The last tally of residents in the park was 188—a major slice of our community. It’s impossible to fathom how our towns, businesses and schools could stomach that loss.
Arguably, the people with the most skin in the game are also sitting on the sidelines. Ranch residents should have intervened at the start, but they have been kept in the dark. But it is not too late for them to take legal action.
A seat at the negotiating table could give residents a place to advocate for fair employment terms and improvements to housing. Do elected officials think relocation and retraining assistance is a decent substitute for defending people’s right to stay in their homes, jobs and community?
If you have an interest in defending our community, you can file an amicus brief, providing contextual information to the judge. If you care about keeping your neighbors, students, teachers, bankers, nurses, nonprofit workers, chefs, gardeners and friends—tell the judge.
I’m sorry that I’m only writing this now. We’re all tired of battling, and I, too, had quietly assumed an attitude of defeat. But I hope that by next week, something has shifted. I hope our leaders awaken to their inaction—and their ability to still act. I hope ranch residents claim their rightful seat at the negotiating table.
Apart from all that, I hope to see our park remain a working landscape, one that shows the world that it’s people who bring food forth from our earth—and that doing so in harmony with nature is worthy of celebrating in a national park.