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Redwood Creek, which flows through Muir Woods on its way to the ocean at Muir Beach, is home to the southernmost recurring population of coho salmon in America. Since mid-July, the National Park Service and Parks Conservancy have been hard at work on this 46-acre site in Marin—restoring the flow of Redwood Creek and adjacent wetlands while improving habitat for the endangered coho and the threatened California red-legged frog. To learn more about the project and volunteering opportunities, read up here and listen to a podcast.
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You might say environmentalism is in the genes of this Bay Area family, but Mario and Patty Chang also exposed their children to the wonders of the parks at an early age. A favorite spot: the Marin Headlands. “Its coastline reminds me of home,” says Mario, referring to the coastal town of Miraflores in Lima, Peru. Mario, a local teacher, pursued a certificate in Environmental Education from the Headlands Institute—where his children would later participate in the Environmental Action Mentorship (TEAM) program as teens. A multilingual Peruvian/Chinese family, the Changs also participated in ethnic media focus groups that encouraged minority groups and underserved communities to engage with their national parks.
His sons show remarkable dedication to environmental education in the parks. Daniel, 23, was the first in the family to complete a TEAM internship in high school and pursued a degree in landscape architecture with a minor in community and regional development, where he has focused on sustainable design and green building practices. David, 22, completed the TEAM mentorship in the Headlands soon after his brother. After learning of the youth programs closer to home, he joined the Inspiring Young Emerging Leaders (I-YEL) at Crissy Field Center and was hired as an instructor with Urban Trailblazers (UTB), a program for middle school students. “My early experiences teaching and learning in the parks helped shaped the person I am today,” David says. “I feel a strong desire to give back to the parks, local communities and organizations that have helped me so much.”
After earning a degree in Environmental Studies, David completed an internship in Climate Change programming at the Commonwealth Club of California. He returned to the Center this summer as a camp instructor, bringing a unique combination of knowledge and experience in the parks to the young explorers in Junior Rangers. “My greatest joy as an educator is to show people how the small things they do can have such a huge positive impact on our environment.”
His younger brother Dennis, 16, joined the Urban Trailblazers program as a middle-school student. Dennis knew early on that he wanted to have the same experience his brother had. “When I watched my brother and his peers in I-YEL, I felt a sense of community at the Center that drew me in,” Dennis says. Last year he was accepted into I-YEL and spent the summer as the Ecology Lab intern working alongside Center staff teaching environmental science to summer campers. This year, the high school sophomore spent his summer break mentoring a new class of Urban Trailblazers, gaining experience leading older students, and getting a behind- the-scenes perspective on the program. In the fall, Dennis will return to high school and plans to apply to I-YEL for a third year. He looks forward to another exciting year in the program. “One of my favorite things about I-YEL is learning about how issues like food justice and environmental justice relate to each of us on a personal level,” Dennis says. “I enjoy helping others become aware.”
The Changs are just one of several families who choose to come back to the Crissy Field Center year after year. Through a “ladder of learning” approach, youth connect to the parks as a child and then grow into more in-depth experiences as a pre-teen, teen, and even into adulthood. “Having the entire family involved in Center programs emphasizes how one can engage in life-long learning in this park and pass it on to others who have yet to make the park connection,” says Christy Rocca, director of the Center.
There is no doubt that Mario Chang made that connection with his children, but his impact reaches far beyond the family. Each year he brings his first grade class to the parks to participate in environmental education field trips. This summer, Mario joined the Center’s staff as part of the national Teacher to Ranger to Teacher (TRT) program, which brings experienced teachers from underserved schools into the parks to establish a link between classrooms and national parks. Thanks to a partnership with the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, Mario spent seven weeks as a uniformed Park Ranger, helping to develop educational trail guides, piloting new education programs, and giving group talks alongside the Presidio’s Interpretive Rangers. Mario says his experience was fun and challenging. “I respect the rangers—they are all really good at what they do,” he says.
When he returns to his classroom at Mission Education Center this fall, Mario will serve as an invaluable link to the rich resources of the Golden Gate National Parks. Although his time working alongside his sons is over for the time being, Mario will continue his work as a park ambassador, proudly wearing his Park Ranger uniform during National Parks Week next April.
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Ah, it’s August. Isn’t it too early for migration? Summertime and the living is easy, right? Doesn’t bird migration kick off with the cooling temperatures and shortening daylight hours of September? Well…yes, it does for many birds of prey and for many songbirds. But for many of our shorebirds, departing nesting sites in the far north, fall migration starts early. Fall migration is now, and here’s one example.
Starting in July, Western Sandpipers start arriving in the Golden Gate National Parks by the dozens and then hundreds. They’ve flown from nesting grounds on the northwestern shore of Alaska where the sun never sets. Weighing barely an ounce, some are still tinged red with their breeding season plumage. They’ve stopped over for hours or days at great Pacific Coast estuaries and mudflats, like Hartney Bay, Grays Harbor, and Humboldt Bay, to probe the sand for minute mollusks, bivalves, and annelids—all fuel for their continued migration.
Where do these Westerns go for the winter? Simply—all over. Their destinations may be anywhere in the coastal belt from British Columbia south to western Mexico, and even to Colombia on the Pacific side. Somehow these 6-inch feather-balls can even cross over the continent at Mexico’s central plateau and settle into the Caribbean-Atlantic coast anywhere from Venezuela north to New Jersey.
Food-rich coastal mudflats and bays are so critical to the survival of a wide range of long-distance summer migrants—sandpipers and surfbirds, willets and dowitchers, phalaropes and plovers—that the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) was founded 25 years ago for the express purpose of tracking the health of these locations. WHSRN was the first international conservation group to tackle protection of long-distance migratory birds throughout their entire global range. This is an amazing undertaking, given the conservation disparities of the many countries that provide a home or an important stopover to our American shorebirds.
Right here in the Golden Gate National Parks, we have some great shorebird-watching opportunities: Ocean Beach, Baker Beach, and Rodeo and Stinson Beaches. Farther north, both Bolinas Lagoon and Tomales Bay are shorebird havens. But the more hidden Marin beaches can also be exciting places to discover the diverse species of San Francisco Bay “peeps.” Try such mini-beaches as Tennessee Beach, or Horseshoe Cove at Fort Baker. My favorite is to stalk the edges of the still-young estuary at Crissy Field, where a new generation of migrant shorebirds are testing the habitat quality of this gentle tidal system.
I have to be honest here. I can handle species identification of speedy forest hawks and small brown sparrows to a pretty decent degree. But shorebird identification is my nemesis. Western Sandpipers are dangerously close to Least Sandpipers in size and behavior, and with the risk of a rare Semipalmated Sandpiper tossed in, my confidence caves in. Fortunately, there is a broad range of magnificent shorebirds available to us in the parks, and with a good pair of binoculars and a well-worn Sibley Guide, most are easily distinguished.
For more information on WHSRN, visit www.whsrn.org. Also check out www.prbo.org for more information on San Francisco Bay shorebird ecology.
COMING NEXT MONTH – Since Conzelman Road (and therefore Hawk Hill) remains closed due to road construction, Allen will recommend other park places to view raptors in September’s Park E-Ventures.
- Allen Fish, GGRO Director
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Join the Institute at the Golden Gate for the Sausalito Film Festival at Cavallo Point-the Lodge at the Golden Gate, located at Fort Baker. The Institute will sponsor the Bay Area premiere of Terra Madre, a documentary about the Slow Food movement and the network of sustainable food communities across the globe on Saturday, August 13 at 1 PM. Alice Waters, Vice President of Slow Food International, will be on site to introduce the film. Following the film at 3 PM, The Cooking School at Cavallo Point will host an exclusive organic tasting event showcasing our local Bay Area food community.
Park E-ventures subscribers receive a $2.50 discount on film tickets to Terra Madre or a $5 discount to the The Cooking School at Cavallo Point post-film tasting event (film screening included). Purchase limited discount tickets online at www.sausalitofilmfestival.com and enter the code “institute”.
More about the film:
Terra Madre (Mother Earth) is a bi-annual multi-language conference hosted in Torino (Turin) by the Slow Food Organization - a network of food communities, each committed to producing quality food in a responsible, sustainable way. They aim to foster discussion and innovation in the related fields of gastronomy and ecology and global economics.
This film starts out as a documentary of the 2008 Terra Madre conference in Torino, presenting stimulating views on the importance of bio-diversity, and working in harmony with nature. Director Ermanno Olmi builds masterfully on his theme, confronting the fate of the planet. The film then gloriously morphs into a beautiful and poetically slow experience of food cultivation in harmony with nature-- an unforgettable and thought provoking experience.
DIRECTOR: Ermanno Olmi
RUN TIME: 88 min
URL: http://terramadredoc.blogspot.com/
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The Petal Pushers program introduces elementary-school students to the uniqueness of the different plant habitats in the Presidio. Through experiential learning activities in our Demonstration Garden at the Presidio Nursery, students discover the amazing world of plants, their life cycles, and their adaptations—while gaining a strong sense of respect and stewardship for our natural world. The program is linked to San Francisco Unified School District Performance Standards.
- Petal Pushers program is for 2nd and 3rd grade students.
- Pre-site activities include an introductory tri-lingual video in Cantonese, English, and Spanish.Each student receives a free activity booklet that contains pre-site, on-site, and post-site activities.
- On-site activities include: exploration time in the Demonstration Garden, where students have the opportunity to make close observations at plants and insects; a seed dispersal activity, where students learn different methods for seed dispersal; a Plant Scavenger Hunt, during which students learn to find the plant their seeds came from by following a plant clue card; after learning about plants and seeds, students have the opportunity to use their sense of curiosity and answer their questions about our native plants by performing experiments and guided inquiry activities.
Teacher Quotes:
“Thank you! It was one of the best field trips I’ve participated in.”
Carol Meehan, Commodore Sloat Elementary School
“The students LOVED the opportunity to experiment.”
Donna Lee, Grattan Elementary School
“Wonderful trip—great engaging activities.”
Mira Sinick, Lawton Elementary School
Student Quotes:
“We learned about plant adaptations.”
Alisson, Paul Revere Elementary School
“I lernd that some seeds traval in water”
Sam, Paul Revere Elementary School
“My favorite part was when we were thinking if the seeds float in the water, got carried from a bird, got carried from a furry animal, or if the wind blew it away.”
Kealani, Monte Verde Elementary School
“I learned that flowers have different colors because they could attrack different polinaters.”
Thomas C, Monte Verde Elementary School
“My favorite part was when we all got to do the experiments.”
Thomas H, Monte Verde Elementary School
“My favorite part was when we got to measure the widest plant in the Presidio Native Plant Nursery.”
Carly, Monte Verde Elementary School
“My favorite part of the fieldtrip was when we saw different kind of plants and flowers.”
Yelena, Monte Verde Elementary School
“I liked when we were observing, investigating and using your materials.”
Derer, Junipero Serra Elementary School
“I observed the different colors, sizes, and shapes of the plants.”
Camille, Junipero Serra Elementary School
“I really liked when we looked for pollen because we explored all the flowers with a magnifying glass.”
Priscella, Junipero Serra Elementary School
For more information on the nursery education programs, click here.
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“…the leaves of the canyon have…blown to the beach and are all hesitantly advancing in gusts of wind, then finally plunging into the surf, to be dispersed and belted and melted and taken off to sea…”
With these words, Jack Kerouac described in a poem the processes at work in the Redwood Creek Watershed. In that ecosystem, fallen leaves and the insects on them help feed the steelhead and salmon in Redwood Creek. The creek, in turn, provided inspiration for a generation of Beat poets.
Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and Neal Cassady, all instrumental in the Beat scene of the 1950s and 60s, frequented the Redwood Creek Watershed to retreat from the pressures of the city. They hung out in Druid Heights, the alternative lifestyle community created by Elsa Gidlow, who had hitchhiked to California alone from the East Coast. Druid Heights, just above the majestic redwoods of Muir Woods, gave them the space to enjoy their hedonistic, spontaneous, and chaotic lifestyles without fear of going to jail—or getting sober.
The San Francisco Bay Area was one of the foci of the Beat movement, which was a rejection of the joyless consumerism and purposeless conformity that was sweeping post-war America. The poets allied themselves with the most experimental jazz musicians of the time and began writing spontaneous, unedited poetry to emulate this music. Allen Ginsberg, one of the most talented and notorious Beats, spent a considerable amount of time in court due to the language and subject matter of his poetry. He was eventually cleared of all charges due to the free speech protections of the First Amendment, but the stress of the trial provided the motivation to retreat to the isolation of Druid Heights.
Ginsberg wrote, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…” (Howl) Actually, their minds were really destroyed by excessive drinking and drug abuse, a significant percentage of which took place along a fork of Redwood Creek at Druid Heights. That era is now over and a new, more productive era has begun in the life of the creek.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, co-founder of City Lights Booksellers, once wrote: “I am waiting for forests and animals to reclaim the earth as theirs. I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder.” After a long wait, a wonderful restoration plan has been developed to revitalize the Redwood Creek Watershed, which stretches from the top of Mount Tamalpais to the Pacific at Muir Beach. The hope of the Parks Conservancy and National Park Service is that the creek restoration will not only create a healthier functioning aquatic system, but also help the “forests and animals…reclaim the earth as theirs.”
This part of the earth, once enjoyed by the Beat poets and now another incredibly beautiful part of the Golden Gate National Parks, can be reclaimed by you too. Join Park Stewardship for ongoing restoration work by contacting: volunteer@parksconservancy.org.
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Roseanna’s community-based SCA Conservation Crew, made up of nine crew members and two crew leaders, has spent five weeks working alongside the Golden Gate Trail Crew building elevated trail and retaining walls and maintaining drains for the winter rains. This dedicated group of youth clad in yellow hard hats has revived the trails in the Phleger Estate, which was chosen as a project site for its proximity to the volunteers’ communities and for its significant maintenance and restoration needs. (Never visited Phleger? Think Muir Woods—but with fewer people.)
“Phleger is a good distance from our trails shop, so working with SCA in the summer to accomplish our trail goals is critical,” says Golden Gate Trail Crew Leader Brian Byrnes. “Not only are we accomplishing our tasks, we are working with local youth who learn and experience our park lands in a meaningful way. The ultimate accomplishment is to create a local steward.” And Rose isn’t the only person returning: five of the nine crew members have worked on a crew in the past. “I know that the work I do here benefits the environment that I live in, and the people that I meet here grow like family,” she says.
Few of the SCA crewmembers had experienced nature like this before working in the park, and few realized that it was so close to home. The crew is partnered with JobTrain, a program that pays $10/ hour to encourage youth to choose jobs that provide valuable work experience. All the crewmembers are residents of low-income communities in San Mateo County.
“I enjoyed learning how to build trails and I like working hard everyday,” says Michael Rodriguez, a first-year SCA crewmember from Redwood City. “I can learn a lot from the outdoors. I can learn life here.”
And as Rose will tell you, this work opportunity has given her more than just a summer job. She credits it with her acceptance to college.
The Parks Conservancy and National Park Service have hosted three SCA crews this season: two national crews (non-local youth), and a weeklong training for future SCA crew-leaders where crew leaders learned nursery work and habitat restoration, as well as trail work. In addition to the Phleger crew’s achievements, SCA youth crews have revitalized the Owl Trail and supported a crucial reroute of the Dipsea Trail. Together with our partners, our parklands are benefiting from all this attention from youth both far and wide—and, maybe more importantly, those youth are benefitting in return.
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A new generation of Heroes was named during the Crissy Field Center’s annual awards this year. Please join us in celebrating the 2010 Ryan Jones Park Heroes: Vinny Lopes, and Ingrid and Jaime Cabada! This honor, named for the beloved Ryan Jones, recognizes tremendous contributions toward preserving and enhancing the Golden Gate National Parks.
VINNY LOPES
Vinny brings an inspiring enthusiasm to the parks as a dedicated volunteer with the Presidio Park Stewards and a leader in the LINC summer youth program.
INGRID & JAIME CABADA
A husband-and-wife team with boundless energy, the Cabadas were founding members of the Habitat Restoration Team in 1987 and continue to volunteer throughout the parks.
And to all of you who volunteer in the parks—THANK YOU for your countless acts of park heroism! We could not do our work without you.
Click here to find out more about the Park Heroes and how you can get involved next year.
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Do you know you can burn off 300 calories per hour by helping transplant the plants we need for planting out this winter? During July and August, the five Native Plant Nurseries in the Golden Gate National Parks will be transplanting almost 200,000 plants! This can only happen with help from park users who give back to the park with a few hours of their time. While volunteering, you will also learn about some of the 400 species of native plants that we are growing for 54 different restoration projects from Pacifica to Stinson Beach. We have nurseries at Redwood Creek (outside Muir Woods), Tennessee Valley, Marin Headlands, the Presidio, and Fort Funston (at the south end of Ocean Beach in San Francisco). http://www.parksconservancy.org/our-work/native-plant-nurseries/sites/
Check for a volunteer program near you, then come help us pot up the plants that will be planted at restoration sites this winter
If nurseries are not your thing, there are lots of other activities in the park for which we need volunteers. For a complete list of what’s happening, visit www.parksconservancy.org/volunteer. Thank you for coming out to volunteer! It’s exercise that’s good for you—and good for the parks.
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