Urgent Call to Action: Help Save Recreation in the GGNRA

We could well be the last generation able to walk with our dogs, ride a bike or horse, surf, fish, kayak, or enjoy a roaring bonfire on the beach in large parts of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA). To preserve access at Ocean Beach, Fort Funston, Muir Beach, Baker Beach, Rodeo Beach, the Marin Headlands, and large portions of San Mateo County, every voice must be heard.

The GGNRA has published a final version of a new General Management Plan (GMP), a document that will guide its management policies for decades to come. The new GMP plans to manage nearly all (90%) of the GGNRA’s lands – including most of Fort Funston and three-quarters of Ocean Beach – as if they were remote, pristine wilderness areas, not the well-used urban parks that they really are.

The new GMP talks about controlling access to its lands so relatively low numbers of visitors can experience a “sense of remoteness and self-reliance,” including Fort Funston and Ocean Beach.

This is an absurd, radical change in the way the GGNRA is managed. Back in the 1970s, the people of the Bay Area gave our recreational open space to the GGNRA with the understanding – and the promise – that people would continue to be able to use the land for recreational activities. For decades, the GGNRA was managed in accordance with this agreement

Now a few National Park Service officials have decided that this heavily used urban recreation area should be managed as if it were the backcountry of Yosemite. They want to kick us out of our recreational backyard.

All forms of recreation – not just dog walking – are at risk with this new GMP. GGNRA officials have already tried to restrict surfing competitions at Ocean Beach, force stables in Marin to close, and cut bonfire hours on the beach. It seems clear now that the GGNRA’s attempts to limit dog-walking areas were just the first volleys in a long-planned war on recreation.

The GGNRA wants this new GMP in place before its Dog Management Plan is finalized (expected to happen sometime next year). The GMP’s restrictions on recreational access seem to preclude any major changes to the Dog Plan, which would cut by 90% where you can walk with your dog, even though public comment has remained significantly opposed to this.

The Boards of Supervisors of San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties have all gone on record opposing the GGNRA’s Dog Plan. Yet the National Park Service remains unwilling to listen and is forging ahead with more and more restrictions on recreational access.

All it will take to implement the GMP is the signature of a National Park Service bureaucrat – Western Regional Director Christine Lehnertz. She could sign it at any time. It is crucial that we convince her not to.

A new umbrella group of recreational users of the GGNRA has formed to challenge the GMP – Save Our Recreation (saveourrecreation.com). The group has posted a petition online asking President Barack Obama and the Secretary of the Interior to stop the GMP and preserve recreation in the GGNRA. Please take a moment to sign the petition at saveourrecreation.com.

Get your friends and family to sign, too. Send the link to anyone and everyone you know who surfs, bikes, rides horses, hikes, kayaks, fishes, hang glides, windsurfs, boogie boards, kayaks, swims, walks with dogs, or paddleboards in the GGNRA. This is not just about dogs. All recreational users would likely face increased restrictions if the GGNRA implements the new GMP.

We cannot let a few GGNRA officials decide to change the agency’s mission and impose a narrow vision for these urban recreation areas that the people do not want. If we do not speak up now, we may lose recreational access to these areas forever.

Say NO to the GGNRA bureaucrats. Sign the petition!

Sally Stephens is the Chair of the San Francisco Dog Owners Group and has been fighting with the GGNRA over its dog policies for over a decade.

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Main article photo by: Alyson Baughman