My Comments on Channel Islands National Park General Plan

These are the comments I sent into the NPS on their General plan for the Channel Islands National Park. The NPS "preferred alternative" calls for, among other things, expansion of the kayak rental at Scorpion into a permanent concession with employee housing and extensive development at Becher's Bay on Santa Rosa including a hotel, restaurant and jeep tours. Comments must be received  by Jan 9. If you follow the link there are instructions on how to comment. 

We have been traveling by boat to the Channel Islands for 35 years and are deeply familiar with its unique wild beauty.  We strongly oppose any concessions or new development within the Channel Island National Park other than limited rustic camping.  The impacts of development such as hotels, restaurants and on-island equipment rentals as envisioned in the NPS preferred alternate 3, would be profound and would include wildlife disruption, sewage, trash, noise, pollution, lights and increased danger of wildfires. The addition of employees of private businesses, who are not trained or invested in the resource conservation mission of the Park will create other problems. How will they be housed and fed? What additional services will they ultimately demand? What kind of oversight will park service staff have to provide to protect the resources? How will enough water and electricity be supplied at to serve them?

We oppose any attempt to increase interest in the CINP by creating more “things to do” and attracting visitors who are looking for an experience that is different than what the CINP already offers.  Currently visitors expect to pack their own food and water and be prepared to deal with their own safety and first aid. There is no “entertainment” available other than the magnificent and transformative experience of just being present in this last wild corner of coastal Southern California. It is not difficult to make a trip to the park today with the many charters available. If visitors are not attracted to the park because it is not comfortable or convenient enough, not “fun” enough, or they don’t feel like planning ahead for their own needs, then they do not belong there. They are less likely to be the kind of people who will protect the CINP resources and more likely to be the kind who will create dangers and nuisances for other visitors and park staff. Visitor traffic should be limited to people who can deal with the harsh conditions and are prepared to take care of themselves.

An important component of the Channel Islands experience, as with any rugged wilderness trip, is self-sufficiency. This is especially true for children and teens. Parents and teachers can tell kids, “You only have what you brought, you can only experience what is all around you, you must leave no trace when you go.” People can give themselves over to the experience of wildness. Even minimal concessions will threaten this experience. You tell a kid, “If you want to go to Johnson’s Lee you have to hike.” And they will say… “but look there’s a jeep rental right over there.”  Once a permanent concession is established at Scorpion it will inevitably include a store selling sunscreen and candy and ultimately “I love CI” t-shirts. Kids will be pestering parents to buys things which is exactly what people go out there to get away from. Hotels, food service, jeep tours or stores cannot be offered to satisfy some visitors without fundamentally changing the nature of the CINP experience in a way that cheapens it for all.

The Channel Islands are an easy day trip away from hundreds of hotels and restaurants in Santa Barbara and Ventura and the wilderness experience of the park should not be compromised by locating these types of facilities on the islands. If new visitor services, educational exhibits or equipment rentals are desired, they should be located on the mainland just as the current park visitor center is.

The park service has done the public a disservice including such limited alternatives in this report.  It feels like the decision has already been made on “what is best for CINP” and the public is being steered toward accepting it.  Alt 2 and Alt 3 both contain the same amount of development. Increases in visitor services show up as beneficial impacts in the assessment even though they will degrade the experience existing visitors are currently seeking and enjoying. There is no mechanism in this report to assess the impact of altering the current self-sufficiency model of the CINP experience…yet once you can go out to the CI and buy stuff with money the experience is fundamentally changed. The public is not offered an alternative which addresses some of the problems solved by Alt 2 and 3 but without the rental concession at Scorpion with permanent housing and without the extensive development at Bechers.  (I think it is a false choice, but even if I had to pick I would rather see the buildings at Bechers deteriorate than turned into a hotel and restaurant if that were the only way to save them.) Changes to the mainland area of the park (visitor’s center etc.) are largely uncontroversial but they are still only packaged up with Alt 2 and 3. The CINP must support it’s own visitor values: “opportunities to experience peace, pristine soundscape, natural dark, and explore an environment with few other people present” but neither Alt2 or Alt3 do this.

I think a fairly broad based consensus can be found among current visitors to the CINP as  follows:

 

• ·       Habitat restoration and protection of biological and archeological resources
• ·       Limited visitors at rustic camping facilities
• ·       Improvements to mainland facilities
• ·       No hotels, restaurants, stores or jeeps
• ·       Support for scientific research

We basically want the islands left as they are except to restore damage done by past human activities. Visitor traffic to CINP is already increasing. There is no need for CINP to “to provide a diverse range of visitor experience opportunities” as the plan puts it.  The CINP will be at legally mandated carrying capacity with the visitor experiences that are currently on offer. If funding is an issue, the report should state that right up front such as: “The CINP wants a hotel at Becher’s because we need the money.”  If this is the case, then a real conversation needs to happen about alternative funding options. Once this Pandora’s box gets open up, those of us who love these islands rightly fear they will be changed forever for the worse.

Ann's Holiday Shopping Guide - Buy Local

My number one gift suggestion is always Love and Gratitude. But if you are looking for something to wrap up and put under the tree here are some ideas that will strengthen our local economy and support our friends and neighbors.

Something sweet and inspiring from Molly Hahn's Buddha Doodles:

A new CD from marvelous Brazilian transplant to Santa Barbara Teka:

A gorgeous handmade ceramic drum from Full Circle Drums:

:

A massage gift certificate or guided meditation CD from master massage therapist Ann Brode:

Beautiful, melodious garden art from Picotte Windchimes:

A DVD or CD from storyteller extraordinaire Michael Katz:

Toad the Wet Sprocket has an awesome new CD out:

Smooth Jazz with Craig Sharmat:

An upcycled shopping tote made right here in Santa Barbara by local artist Susan Owens.  The coffee bean bag would have been discarded but now it is lined, has comfortable handles and can hold A LOT of groceries!  Available at Raoul Textiles 136 State Street across from the train station.

Looking for something for a gardener or pet lover? Head over to Island Seed and Feed.

Give a gift of healthy food from the The Isla Vista Food Coop 

Make a sampler from their large selection of Fair Trade Chocolate or their whole shelf of different hot sauces.  How about a basket of locally grown apples or mandarins or winter squash? It's also a great place for supplies for your healthy, delicious holiday feasts. Beer and wine too!

Make a gift in someone's name to our many worthy local non-profits. Here are some of my favorites:

The Environmental Defense Center, doing everything legally possible to protect our local environment.

The Wilderness Youth Project and Sprout Up, connecting kids and nature.

The Marge Luke Theater providing an affordable venue for performing arts.

Domestic Violence Solutions, providing shelter and counseling for families dealing with domestic abuse.

Dear America, Get a grip.

Chechnyan separatists are not coming to murder you in your beds. We do not need to tell the entire city of Boston to "shelter in place" because of one suspected armed, deranged teenager. The NRA has made sure that every deranged and violent person in the country can access as much fire-power as they want with an absolute minimum of inconvenience and, as a result, on any given day, our cities are full of armed deranged teenagers. And enough with the Guantanamo/enemy combatant/military tribunal/torture nonsense. Is our legal system really so fragile that it cannot endure the strain of regular old due process on it's ancient creaking cogs of justice? How many bucket loads of money, anxiety and inane babbling stretches of air time are we going to devote to this when the one thing we really could have done to decrease last week's awful death and mayhem was to make sure government regulators were inspecting fertilizer plants.

Peace Commando

Russ and Ann at Protest...Russ is thrilled to be there.

I wrote this for the Santa Barbara Independent on the 1-year anniversary of the Iraq invasion. One year earlier, on Febuary 15, 2003, in a desperate attempt to stop the war, an estimated 10 million people took to the streets across the globe in the biggest protest the world has ever seen. Five thousand people marched and rallied in Santa Barbara.  We said the invasion of Iraq was illegal, was justified by a web of lies and would weaken our country and cause vast human suffering. It is cold comfort that we were right. 

For the grim anniversary of the invasion of Iraq I bought my 10-year-old son Russ a book, “2/15 The Day the World Said No to War”, a photo journal documenting the day millions of people around the world protested together for peace. Russ didn’t need much explanation of the book’s significance. He had lived and breathed anti-war protesting that winter and spring of 2003, not always enthusiastically (“It really cuts into my playtime”) but dutifully.

“History won’t be kind to this war,” I would tell him. “I want you to be able remember that your family wasn’t silent in the face of a terrible wrong.”

To amuse himself during the tedious rallies before the marching, yelling and drumming started, he would play commando, crouching behind trees and “Give Peace a Chance” signs while firing his imaginary turbo-ballistic-death-ray at passing pacifists.

What can I say? He’s a boy.  He is a boy raised by non-violent parents, in an extended family of gentle if slightly nerdy men, in a home with no TV or Video Games, and, like all the boys in my relatively large but admittedly not scientifically significant sample, he is fascinated with weapons.  When he could barely toddle he would place his tiny hand in mine, gaze up at me adoringly, then pick up a stick and start whacking things with it. When he learned I would not buy toy guns he made them out of wooden educational toys. When he learned I would not buy a game-boy he made one out of legos and played imaginary shoot-‘em-up games on it complete with lively sound effects.  My Mother’s Day gifts are drawings of artillery.

When I have ventured to comment that this type of play disturbs me a bit, especially at actual Peace Rallies his response is, “ Mom, I’m playing.  They are not real guns.” (Duh!).

Story as it appeared in Independent
in 2004

In spite of his choice of play activities I have to admit that Russ does not hit other children, evacuates all unwanted bugs from the house and places them gently in the garden and distributes ample, soulful hugs.  When he was four he went through a period of time when he literally hugged everyone: everyone single person at the post office or the Food Coop, everyone in line at the credit union and all the tellers too.  I remember being at an outdoor festival when Russ noticed a very frail elderly woman being helped to a seat. “Mommy, I love her!” he exclaimed and ran off to make sure she knew.  Needless to say, my little ray of sunshine and I were very popular around town. I felt that I moved through the world accompanied by a wide-open window to the divine.

Even as we protested the war, I tried to shield Russ from the wretched news that came from that place of killing.  Nevertheless, he heard a radio report about Ali Abbas, the boy who lost his entire family and both his arms to a U.S. missile.  Russ was devastated with grief. “I will remember him my whole life” he told me and this is no doubt true. Russ wrote to his Congressman, Elton Gallegly, “I feel sad because he is a kid just like me and he deserves as much as me. He is my friend…I want you to know that the war isn’t a good idea and many people just like you and me are getting killed.”  Gallegly responded by acknowledging the sadness of “unavoidable” tragedy even as he justified the war, which he continues to support. Apparently, like many, he fails to see what is crystal clear to Russ: real guns, real children. (Duh!).

Some people say that the devotion of boys to weapons and play fighting proves that violent conflict is the natural order for humans.  But is children’s capacity for love and empathy any less natural?  I would argue the potential for both are innate.  How our children go forward in the world will be determined by which one we value and model. To the boys I know, there is no ambiguity. Play is play. Violence is violence. As Russ’s friend Aaron put it, pausing in his game of gruesome-alien-space-invaders to comment on the war, “At school we’re not allowed to fight. We are supposed to use our words.” (Duh!)

Russ and I attended a “Festival for Peace” last year and were admiring the many peaceful objects put out for sale when Russ noticed an assortment of small bronze Buddha statues. He was particularly attracted to the ones with all the extra arms. “Mom, I want a Buddha.” He announced.

I felt pleased. “Of course I’ll get you a Buddha, son.”

He examined the statues for another moment then said. “Actually Mom, I want two Buddhas.”

“I think one Buddha is enough.  Why would you need two Buddhas?” I asked.

He paused, gauging my likely reaction, then dove in, “I need two so I can make them fight.”

I imagined the duel to the death of the multi-armed ninja-cyborg-buddhas, in each hand a different flaming-laser-blaster, then, rather lamely, admonished,  “Russ, Buddhas don’t fight. That’s the whole point of Buddhas.”

“Mom, they’re not real Buddhas.” (Duh!)