Marin Voice: Don’t let administration strip our beloved protected lands
I was 15 when I first drove from San Francisco to Canada with my family.
I fell in love and found faith somewhere in Marin, besotted with rolling hills, tangled oaks, the high wide sky and rolling fogs foreign to my East Coast roots. Fifteen years later, I moved here and, at almost 60, I now count myself a proud Californian with all the easy stereotypes and complex reality that entails.
My husband grew up in Northern Nevada, a differing culture and landscape linked to California by the breathtaking Sierra Nevada and ownership of Lake Tahoe. If you haven’t visited the lake, you haven’t yet met a true wonder of creation.
From Carson City, I like to travel the winding road of Mark Twain’s “Roughing It,” an undervalued gem, from high plains desert to a deathly steep grade past the craggy cliffside of Mount Rose. It descends to mountain meadow with riotous wildflowers, thousands of monarch butterflies and snow as late as July. And always the ever-present bears.
Below, spread in all its glory, is the sapphire jewel of Lake Tahoe, crowned with a ring of some of the most stunning and formidable wilderness, the snow-capped mountains of the Sierra. This lake of pristine water is one of the deepest lakes in the world, its mountains the source of so much fertile land. My children’s rite of passage was camping on the Tahoe Rim Trail and Desolation Wilderness. My husband swam the true width (12 miles). Poised on a mountaintop, with the sparkling lake below and trees dripping in heavy snow, you feel like you have entered an enchanted world. Driving the California side, you meet harsh beauty and terror of imaging pioneers struggling over impenetrable mountains.
My love for the region is deep. So it is with anger and dismay that I read of the Department of Government Efficiency’s recent dismissals of park service employees there and throughout the country. These parks and forests are a national treasure. They are part of the historic memory we leave our descendants.
More than other countries, our protected lands encompass and illuminate the scope and variety of geography from which we carved our nation’s existence. They are testament to the richness of our plants and animals and our ability to survive a multitude of experiences that formed who we are as a nation.
Our ability to protect, explore, research and understand these lands is entwined with our ability to thrive and find solutions to the challenges of today. Our rangers are exceptional caretakers, educators, responders and researchers of these places. They instill knowledge, curiosity, a sense of wonder and reverence for who we are.
Through their observation, they see signs of what may come to pass on earth and often offer innovative responses. My family benefited from visiting parks from California to Maine, Yellowstone to Gettysburg. Like so many millions of Americans, we proudly claim ownership of our parks that embody in large part what it is to be American.
What is the value of this sacred land? Is its worth counted only in revenue streams and products to be harvested? Our parks provide joyful exploration, awe, a retreat from bustle, sanctuary for the weary spirit and discovery to all ages. They are places where, regardless of income, race, religion, political affiliation or occupation, we can all connect. They are a great equalizer, as valuable in our cities as in the vast unpopulated spaces.
They tell us, often in painful as well as joyful detail, who we were, who we are and who we may be. They belong to all of us. If you want to rip the fabric of the United States and its people irrevocably apart, destroy its national parks.
The eradication of park rangers (and subsequent closing or limiting access to parks) is more than a symbol of scarcity, greed or political upheaval. It’s the cold abandonment and sale of our nation’s body. The vehicle through which our nation’s blood beats and has been spilled and saved.
If our heartbeat falters, so will our collective soul. This is us. Where does the future lead if we no longer treasure our native land, our unspoken, priceless legacy? Once sold or abandoned, we may never get it back.
Elizabeth Connell Nielsen raised her family in Novato. She has lived in California since 1996.