The decades-long battle to preserve off-leash recreational access on the beaches and coastal trails of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) is reaching a critical point.
Sometime this summer or fall, the National Park Service will release a Final Draft Dog Management Plan for the GGNRA that will decide where you can walk your dog at popular places like Fort Funston, Ocean Beach, and Crissy Field. Sadly, if history is any indication, the plan will likely continue park service attempts to ban dogs – and, therefore, people with dogs – from nearly all of the 80,000-acre GGNRA.
Congress created the GGNRA in 1972 with a mandate to preserve and expand recreational open space. For nearly 40 years, the park service managed the GGNRA for recreational access, including dog walking on 1% of its land. People, dogs, plants and wildlife coexisted for decades. But, in the late 1990s, the park service began a series of moves to restrict dog walking, culminating in a draft dog plan in 2011 that would cut current off-leash access by over 90%, with no explicit justification for the change.
Despite thousands of public comments that overwhelmingly opposed the plan, the park service released a second draft in late 2013 with insignificant, largely cosmetic changes. They still propose to ban dogs entirely from most of Fort Funston and three-quarters of Ocean Beach, remove dogs from most of the trails in the Marin headlands and require leashes at Marin’s dog-friendly Muir Beach. The plan allows for no off-leash space in San Mateo County. In essence, people with dogs are facing a ban from 99.9% of the GGNRA.
But it’s not just dogs. The park service also wants to restrict – if not outright ban – bonfires on Ocean Beach. They have set difficult requirements on equestrians in Marin, and hassled boogie boarders on Ocean Beach. All recreation in the GGNRA is at risk.
In January 2015, despite mounting criticism, the park service signed a new GGNRA General Management Plan that declared they would manage nearly all land in this urban recreation area the same way they manage remote pristine wilderness – by designating nearly all of the GGNRA for low visitor use and controlled access. Recreation is not even listed as one of the guiding principles in the new general plan. Most of Fort Funston and three-quarters of Ocean Beach will now be managed like the backcountry of Yosemite.
With the stroke of a pen, the park service changed the GGNRA’s mandate away from recreation, without Congress’ authorization. In March, representatives of Save Our Recreation, a coalition of recreational groups, met with Republican and Democratic Congressional offices on Capitol Hill about the GGNRA. These meetings revealed a nearly universal exasperation with the park service because of its heavy-handed dealings with local communities.
Congresswoman Jackie Speier, who has strongly supported dog walking in the GGNRA, recently called attempts to restrict recreational access “un-American.” And in a letter to the park service last month, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi reiterated the importance of recreation in the GGNRA, and called on the park service to “consider, consult and incorporate” concerns about the plans. Both echo the Boards of Supervisors of all three counties with GGNRA land (San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo) who have gone on record opposing the plans.
Congress is now watching the park service closely to see how it implements the general plan and how they include public input on the final dog plan (there will be one more round of comments before a final rule is issued in 2016).
Only substantial, sweeping changes to the dog plan from previous drafts will be acceptable to the community, local elected officials, and Congress. The population of the Bay Area is rapidly increasing and people need places for recreation and to exercise their dogs. The park service must stop ignoring public sentiment and stop trying to restrict recreational access in the GGNRA.
If they don’t, all bets are off. We’ll let you know how you can help once the final dog plan comes out. In the meantime, be sure to visit SaveOurRecreation.com and join SFDOG or another dog advocacy group. We’ll keep you informed.
Sally Stephens is the Chair of the San Francisco Dog Owners Group (SFDOG).
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