“I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?” ~Robert Redford, Yosemite National Park dedication, 1985

More than 150 park advocates from throughout California will be traveling to Sacramento on March 20 to participate in our 10th Annual Park Advocacy Day! These advocates will walk the halls of the Capitol, meet with legislators and lobby on behalf of our state parks.

If you’d like to join us on March 20 at the Capitol, please register today!  There is no cost to participate in Park Advocacy Day, but registration and participation in an online/telephone training session is required. Registration closes on February 24.

Not sure if Park Advocacy Day is for you? Maybe you just need a little convincing! Read our FAQs, or check out a recap of last year’s event (including photos).

Over the past 10 years, over 700 park supporters have joined us for this event (many returning year after year) to lobby in support of efforts to keep California’s state parks open, safe, protected and well-maintained. The work of these park advocates has helped to educate and influence policymakers as they make important decisions about California’s state park system.

Now more than ever, we all need to help defend and Save Our State Parks. Please join us!  In the words of Captain Planet, “The Power is Yours!”

Watch the beautiful video about California’s historic parks:

If you haven’t had the opportunity to look at The Magnificent 70 website yet, now is the time!

The Magnificent 70 is a site we created this summer as a celebration of 70 California state parks slated to close July 2012, and to serve as a reminder of what will be lost if they are shuttered. It is like a living photo book with gorgeous photos and original stories written by author Kerry Tremain about each of the 70 parks on the closure list.

We always like to share stories on CalPark Voices of creative people who are using their craft to raise awareness for state parks. One Berkeley-based artist, Jean Sanchirico, has done just that. She taking action by is using her landscape drawings for a good cause. For every landscape drawing sold, Jean is donating 10% of the proceeds directly to CSPF in an effort to show her support for keeping our beautiful parks open and accessible. See her work here (she’s really good!).

“In this small way I to hope raise awareness, so that others can use their skills to support our parks,” said Jean.

Jean’s work, “Embracing the Landscape,” is currently on exhibit at Garage Gallery in Berkeley. Be sure to drop by to see her stuff. If you go this Sunday you may even have a chance to meet her!

The Garage Gallery hosts an exhibit of recent work by Jean Sanchirico
“Embracing the Landscape”
Exhibition dates: Three weekends, February 4-19
Gallery Hours:  Saturday & Sunday afternoons, 1 to 4pm
The artist will be present in the gallery Sunday afternoons, February 5 & 12.

Garage Gallery is located at 3110 Wheeler Street, one block East of Shattuck Avenue and three blocks South of Ashby Avenue, in Berkeley.

Since 2004 Jean has been drawing her impressions using chalk pastel, capturing, the feeling and moods that landscapes evoke with simple and broad strokes. Since the Department of Parks and Recreation released their proposed list of park closures due to a $22 million general fund budget cut, Jean has been giving back to the land with these donations.

Kudos to Jean and all the artists out there who are passionate about parks!

The picture that launched a thousand ships. © Cynthia Leeder

“I recently attended a public meeting held by Sheila Golden, the former park interpreter for Henry Coe State Park.  Sheila is now attending graduate school at UC Davis and is putting together a master plan for Henry Coe State Park for her thesis.  This plan is required by the state before anything can be done to the park in terms of improvements for interpretation and the like.

As part of that effort Sheila developed a survey for park visitors asking how they heard of the park and why they came to the park and things like that.  I found out at the meeting that some respondents indicated they first heard of Henry Coe and came to the park because of the California State Parks Foundation calendar where a picture of mine was published.

Another gem from Henry Coe. © Cynthia Leeder

I love Henry Coe with all my heart.  It really is a special park, often rough scrabble and broken down, in need of everything, but Henry Coe makes me feel good inside when I am there.  I am not a religious person but the feeling of being up on the Ponderosa Loop towards sunset with the sound of a breeze blowing through the stands of Ponderosa Pines is nothing less than spiritual and renewing.  You have to experience it.  There is nothing like it and fits perfectly with the inscription Sada Coe had placed on the Coe Monument, ‘May these quiet hills bring peace to the souls of those who are seeking.’

To survive for the long term, the park needs more visitors and if my pictures can help promote Henry Coe and bring people to the park, then I feel like I have done something!”

Cynthia has been giving more to state parks than just her photographs, and it seems she is getting some great fulfillment in return.

“I am starting my third year as uniformed volunteer at Henry Coe.  I have already achieved Senior Volunteer status.  I often work the visitor center meeting the park visitors, suggesting hikes, and helping the backpackers plan their trips into the park.  I am loving it!”  

Thank you to Cynthia for your dedication to state parks!

Do you take photos in state parks, too? Upload them to our free photo contest or our Facebook page; we’d love to see them!

Say, is that a potential park partner in the distance?

This is great news for nonprofit groups who have the desire to help state parks in their communities. If you remember back in October Gov. Brown signed AB 42 into law so State Parks could legally have the option to enter into operating agreements with nonprofit groups that want to help. Now these workshops will add the wherewithal, too, so that we can really start to see some results in keeping parks open.

In addition to the workshops, State Parks also created a Partnership Workbook for Operating Agreements which will be available at the workshops and online soon.  The workbooks will have information like eligibility, partnership options, the application process, proposal checklists, financial plan requirements, and more.

Here are the upcoming workshops:

• February 22 – Redding: 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Turtle Bay Exploration Park, 840 Sundial Bridge Drive, Museum Classroom.
• February 23 – Fort Bragg: 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the CV Starr Community Center, 300 South Lincoln Street, Conference Room 3.
• February 24 – Santa Rosa: 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., Julliard Park, Church of One Tree Community Center, 492 Sonoma Avenue.
• February 28 – West Sacramento: 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the City of West Sacramento, Galleria at City Hall, 1110 West Capitol Avenue, Rms 157-160, West Sacramento.
• March 1 – Los Angeles: 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the City of San Fernando Aquatic Center, Upstairs Multi-Purpose Room, 208 Park Avenue, San Fernando.

Read California State Parks’ full statement here.

Will you or your group be attending a workshop?

CSPF member Klytia Nelson Dutton reached out to CSPF with this beautiful essay about her experiences growing up among state parks as the daughter of a park ranger, or “a proud park brat,” as she describes it.

This is my California

I was born with crashing waves in my backyard. Sand between my toes and the ocean in my soul. Point Reyes. Half Moon Bay. I was born as the daughter of a California State Park Ranger, and the Parks that make up our great State were my backyards.  I am a proud Park Brat. Looking at California for me, as with many  Californians, is an emotional journey through the heart of a region that embodies the heart and soul of who and why I am. I find it difficult to separate myself and the boundaries of my skin from the soil, trees, and skyline. California is innately ME, though the reflection I see is not necessarily my own.  It is like an anatomy class, where I learn of the function of the arteries – the rivers and canals – moving the sacred liquid to the organs of forest, meadows, valleys, cities, desserts, and sea shores, which, in turn, all perform their function to benefit the quaking body of the whole. Is it vain? Perhaps. But the dirt has been shoved so deeply beneath my nails that it has forgotten when the separation could be made.

This is my California.

I have crawled  with desert tortoise between the blood purple juice of prickly pears and motorcycle tracks. I have seen the snow fall in silent moments onto the cacti of the High Desert. All of this melts into a second…they oxymoron of that which we associate with cold blanketing that which has come to symbolize heat.

This is my California.

I have sucked at the air of the Sierras from childhood forts built from Ponderosa Pines and granite rocks of our backyards. My playmates have been innumerable deer, raccoon, bear, bobcat, coyote, squirrel, lizard, snake, fox, and a mountain lion. I have felt the ecstasy of life from a boulder extending over a lake, as the breeze played with my hair and damsel flies dances across the surface. The mining community of Johnsville, inside Plumas Eureka State Park, reminds me of the dreams of so many before; dreams that can be peeled away like the layers of wallpaper covering the walls of an old abandoned miners house that used to stand near ours. Time has frozen here, and the faces that speak to us stand frozen as reflections of ourselves in the bottom of the glory holes.

This is my California.

The Land of Fire, where the legends are still told, reminding us that the authority of the person who is telling the story shapes what is lift in and what is left out. Families know this, neighborhoods know this, governments know this. Our history is written accordingly. These whispers of stories, oral tradition of our past, aging photos of faces whose lives are summed up in one expression captured in the flash of a bulb.  Their paths brought us to where our steps could begin. They are our first steps. Whether we acknowledge their spirit or not, even a solitary walk is never taken alone. Past waterfalls and moonscapes. Over lakes or fields. Around campfires or on under stars. The faces of those who were and those who will be join our traditions of now.

This is my California.

I passed elementary years as a wood-nymph, running barefoot through the sorrel, hiding in goose pens and staining my hands with the juice of blackberries and huckleberries of Humboldt Redwoods State Park.  We swam with lamprey in the Eel River (which is just how it got its name) and my young mind was jarred with the concept of clear cutting as I watched hillsides beyond these boarders literally disappear before my eyes. Conservation. Preservation. Use. I learned to love a land I could throw my arms around, a sky I could spin beneath until I fell down, laughing, in sand, in the fallen leaves of oaks, in redwood duff, or on amber waves of grain. Salmon spawning and making a nest with their tails. Trout rising to a late evening hatch dancing across the water. The company of friends and the silence of our soul.

This is my California.

New tongues. Old tongues. New generations and seventh generation just breaking their teeth on a California that grows in trees and takes root just outside their doors. Peacocks and Ranches. Cotton and Cantaloupe. Missions and mining. Water. A time when there were no homes as far as the eye could see. A rumble as an ear is placed on the dirt to feel the vibration of an earthquake and the rumbling in your soul.

This is my California.

A throbbing, growing, dancing world where ears tune to the multicultural orchestra of life. A multi-faceted and versatile spirit that binds us together beyond the boundaries of skin which keep us apart. Or, it is the face of the many Californians, each with a unique history and story to tell, bound together by a love. A love of the dirt we can‘t get out from between our toes or from under our nails.   The diversity of ethnicity, lifestyle, economics, and relations to the land paint a canopy of beauty materialized, much like a mural, onto the walls of California.

This embodies the relationship between history and fiction, the line between story and teller. This is my story. This is me. And beneath your reflection, your story calls. We, as Californians,  have a beautiful story to share.  It is not a time to sit silent. It is our turn to tell the story of California. The story of us, whether welcomed generations before, or yesterday, is ours to keep.   Where we are engaged. Where we take our first steps. Where we learn. Where we remember family before us. Where we celebrate the friends around us. The system of rivers, streams, highways, and roads that connect us exteriorly perhaps attach us all interiorly, somehow, as well.  We are California.

This is our California.

And it is ours to keep.

\

Klytia Nelson Dutton

First written for “Writing California” class at Sonoma State University, circa 1997. My sisters and I read a similar version at the retirement of my father, David Nelson, from California State Parks circa 2003.  It was printed in the CSPRA newsletter following. This version has been altered slightly to meet the current situation. 

See the other PSAs here.

Because you have all had some really great things to say about parks and defending what’s yours, we thought it would be fun if YOU make the next video. So here’s what we have in mind:

• Make a video about why you love state parks, or about why you want to defend state parks from closure.
• It doesn’t have to be shot in a state park. Use your web cam if you want! It doesn’t matter, we just want to hear what you have to say because you are passionate about state parks and your voice matters.
• Make the video as short at 10 seconds or as long as you want.
• Don’t worry about being artsy fartsy. It can be raw and sincere and still be totally awesome. Use the Defend What’s Yours image below in your video if you want to brand it to the campaign.
• Upload your video to YouTube and tag us in your description or post it on our Facebook page so we know you made it. (Or if you don’t want to upload it just contact us and we can upload it for you.)  We will share it with our friends and members so we can hear your individual voices.

We hope the Defend What’s Yours campaign has inspired you and that you will “show” us why you are defending state parks!

‘California state parks belong to you, but not for long. Six months from now 25 percent of your parks will be closed unless you step up to defend them.’

It’s a strong message, but we believe public awareness is necessary in this moment to empower citizen action and mobilize grassroots support to save the nation’s biggest and best state park system.

As part of the big launch today, we unveiled a new series of television public service announcements (PSAs) that will air statewide starting this week. Take a look at one here:

See the other PSAs on our YouTube channel.

It’s time to say enough is enough. Enjoy the videos, and please join us in this fight to defend state parks. Do you want to be a defender?

90 percent of California’s original redwood forests are gone, but what remains are protected by a fragile web of California state and national parks. From Big Sur to the Oregon border, these magnificent redwood forest state parks inspire us, and now they need our help. Due to budget cuts, many of California redwood state parks are on the closure list, therefore potentially threatening these ancient and magnificent species. Here are some of the voices of people who know redwoods best, and what their concerns are.

This video is part of The Magnificent 70 project. See more at http://mag70.calparks.org.

Produced by Doug McConnell and Convergence Media.