An International

Perspective on 

California State Parks

– New initiatives to consider

– Good examples to learn from

– Ways to sustain international involvement

Abridged version of a report to the

California Department of Parks and Recreation

by Ted Trzyna [BIO]

California Institute of Public Affairs

February 2000

CIPA Publication No. 101 (abridged)

Links to related material:

California's urban protected areas: Progress despite daunting pressures

The Groundwork approach to urban renewal: What California can learn from an innovative British environmental partnership program

Contents

Introduction

Background note

New initiatives to consider

1. A partnership organization based on Britain’s Groundwork

2. Crafting an outreach strategy

3. Park units to celebrate California writers and literature

4. A new kind of park to protect large-scale working landscapes

5. A transborder complex of protected areas in California-Baja California.

6. Interpreting parks based on their inspirational value

Good examples to learn from

7. Master plans

8. Biodiversity

9. Marine parks

10. Cultural heritage

11. Long-distance trails

Ways to sustain international involvement

12. IUCN and the World Commission on Protected Areas

13. Biosphere reserves

14. Sister park systems

15. International visitors and study trips abroad

Contacts

Introduction

This is a report from the California Institute of Public Affairs to the California Department of Parks and Recreation and the broader community of those working to protect California’s natural and cultural heritage. Its purpose is to stimulate discussion of policy options. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Parks and Recreation. Comments are welcome and should be sent to the author at the Institute.

In December 1999, Rusty Areias, director of the California Department of Parks and Recreation (see Background Note below), asked me to look at what California can learn from park systems in other countries. He was eager to find new ideas to feed into a wide-ranging planning process.

We agreed that I would examine a variety of innovative policy and management tools, giving particular attention to ways of reaching groups of people who tend not to benefit from parks, and serving the needs of urban areas.

Working closely with the Department, the California Institute of Public Affairs would make recommendations for further work that might include study trips to other countries and visits to California from park experts from abroad. We would then help develop specific proposals.

CIPA brings to this task long experience in environmental policy both in California and internationally. Much of our work in the international arena has been done through an organization that is mentioned several times in this paper: IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

IUCN, which was founded in 1948 and has its headquarters in Switzerland, is the umbrella organization of the world conservation movement. It brings together national governments, public agencies, and nongovernmental organizations in a unique global partnership: some 900 members spread over 137 countries. CIPA began working with IUCN in 1972 and became a member in 1980. From 1990-96, I served on IUCN’s governing Council and chaired one of its six commissions, on Environmental Strategy and Planning. I currently serve on IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas, the body concerned with parks and similar areas, and several of the people I consulted for this study are members of that group.

In preparing this paper, I contacted key people in various countries and international organizations, conferred with a number of individuals in California, and participated in meetings in Oakland and Los Angeles held as part of a State Parks vision process.

I then spent two weeks in Britain and France meeting with leaders and experts in park management and related fields. They included people knowledgeable about what is happening on the broad international scene, as well as in their own countries. I concentrated on Britain, which ― as this paper makes clear ― has been a center of innovation in relating parks to social, economic, and wider environmental concerns.

Several good friends helped me on that trip: John Davidson, founder and former national director of Groundwork; Matthias Finger, professor of public management, Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration; Andréa Finger-Stich, consultant to IUCN and WWF; Bryn Green, professor emeritus of countryside management, University of London; Adrian Phillips, chairman, World Commission on Protected Areas; and Steve Robinson, chief executive, The Environment Council, London.

Returning home, I attended a State Parks summit meeting held in Carmel on February 16-18.

A full list of those I contacted for this project appears at the end of this paper. I greatly appreciate their help.

In addition to gathering information and ideas from many sources, I took a fresh look at California State Parks from the perspective of nearly thirty years of work in international conservation.

The initial stage of this project has been funded by the California Institute of Public Affairs and the California Department of Parks and Recreation. The Institute covered all travel and communication expenses.

This paper is organized into three parts: new initiatives to consider, good examples to learn from, and ways to sustain international involvement. In addition, three general points need to be made:

-- We have an excellent state park system in California but can learn a great deal from other countries and by participating in international organizations. It is no accident that the world’s most innovative park systems are those most actively involved in exchanging experience internationally.

-- If we broaden the role of California State Parks, we must be sure about its mission. Park systems around the world are moving toward broader mandates. These often include social, economic development, and more comprehensive environmental goals, as well as going beyond park boundaries to bring nature to urban residents. The lesson we can learn from these countries is that broader mandates are often appropriate, but they must be defined carefully and clearly.

-- Working internationally requires specialized skills and knowledge. Pitfalls are numerous, but they can be avoided by getting help from individuals and organizations that have international expertise in this field.

Background note

California's state park system has 266 natural and historic units totaling 1.2 million acres -- 485,000 hectares -- in coastal, valley, mountain, and desert regions. Neglected for years, the system is now getting priority attention from the Governor and state Legislature. On March 7, California voters approved  a $2.1 billion park bond issue, much of which will be used to improve and expand the state park system. 

The state park system is administered by the California Department of Parks and Recreation ("State Parks"), part of the Resources Agency of California. The state parks are separate from the United States National Park System, which has several units in California, including Death Valley, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, and Yosemite national parks. The origins of California's state parks can be traced to President Abraham Lincoln's granting of Yosemite Valley to the state of California in 1864; the valley was later returned to the federal government so it could be included in a larger Yosemite National Park.     

New initiatives to consider

1. A new partnership organization based on Britain’s Groundwork

Groundwork, a nonprofit launched in 1982 by Britain’s equivalent of the U.S. National Park Service, shows what can be achieved by a sophisticated environmental partnership organization.

Groundwork’s original purpose was to deal with abandoned industrial sites and played-out quarries in the economically depressed Northwest of England. The conventional top-down methods weren’t working, so it was decided to try a more flexible approach. Groundwork was set up to bring the public, business, and voluntary sectors together in clearly defined geographic areas to create parks and green corridors, build hiking and biking trails, and convert abandoned buildings to offices and housing.

Groundwork has been a great success. There are now forty-three local Groundwork trusts scattered over England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. They include a quarter of the country’s population.

Overall, Groundwork has an annual budget of $100 million. It has over a thousand employees and attracts exceptionally bright and dedicated people. It is involved in over 3,000 projects at any given time. Last year, it worked with 4,550 businesses and involved 136,000 schoolchildren in environmental projects.

Groundwork now states its aim as regeneration of people and land. Although many of its projects still relate to parks, open space, and outdoor recreation, it is also heavily involved in such areas as environmental education and advising small businesses on compliance with environmental regulations. One program aims to reduce crime among teenagers by involving them in hands-on environmental improvement projects. Another program trains unemployed people for new "green collar" jobs in such fields as recycling.

The territories of local Groundwork trusts cover from one to several contiguous units of local government and typically have a few hundred thousand residents. Local trusts involve all the key actors in their areas and are run by boards that represent local governments, businesses, and civic groups. Their staff members "act as catalysts and enablers, providing a mix of inspiration, technical know-how, management, finance, and support to bring about local projects by local people."

Although Groundwork’s organization is decentralized, it has strong national and regional offices that maintain high-level contacts with government and major corporations, and facilitate sharing of skills among the local units.

Groundwork is highly skilled in developing financial packages for projects from a wide range of funding sources. These include government programs in such areas as employment training and neighborhood crime prevention, as well as environmental programs in the narrow sense.

Businesses contribute an impressive twenty-seven percent of Groundwork’s budget, $27 million this year. One reason for strong business support is that Groundwork builds long-term relationships with companies through consulting and neighborhood improvement. Another reason is that big corporations, rather than contributing to many small local projects, often prefer to fund national programs of a large, highly visible organization.

In the mid-1990s, the U.S. National Park Service began to introduce the Groundwork concept in the Northeastern states, and pilot projects are in early stages of development in six Rustbelt cities. Groundwork-type programs have also been started in Japan and several countries on the European continent.

The added value that a Groundwork-type organization would bring to California would come from taking a comprehensive, whole-system approach to partnerships in a geographic area. This broad-gauged organization would offer sophisticated management, specialized know-how, and skills in leveraging large-scale funding from largely untapped sources. It would be designed to enhance, rather than compete with, existing efforts as much as possible.

A California Groundwork-type organization would be modeled after British Groundwork only in a general way. It would be adapted to California’s particular institutions and ways of doing things. It would not necessarily be involved in as many activities as the British group, although it should be as comprehensive as possible. It would not have a formal relationship with the British organization but could participate in its annual meeting as do existing sister organizations.

A pilot Groundwork-type program could be launched in the Los Angeles area, where State Parks has a relatively low profile. The program would be a means of acquiring and managing new nature parks in the urban core, bringing nature to the city by other means such as landscaping school grounds in ways that promote learning, and experimenting with other ideas mentioned in this paper.

Another pilot project might be developed in a more rural area, for example, in part of the San Joaquin Valley and the adjoining Sierra foothills.

John Davidson, who founded Groundwork and directed it until 1996, is a friend of mine. In 1995, he arranged for me to visit several Groundwork trusts and I had long talks with him and members of his staff. A year later, we went to Brazil together to promote the Groundwork idea. On my recent trip to Britain, I continued my conversations with Dr. Davidson and also met with Steve Grainger, Groundwork regional director for London and the Southeast. Dr. Davidson and Mr. Grainger have offered to receive a study group from California. 

CIPA is preparing a paper on how a Groundwork-type partnership organization might be developed in California. 

[Note: For an update, go to www.cipahq.org and CIPA Papers Online.]

2. Crafting an outreach strategy

One of the greatest challenges facing State Parks is to find ways of reaching out to people who have little connection with California’s natural and cultural heritage. An explicit strategy is needed for this purpose. The strategy should draw on social-science knowledge specific to California’s population. It should also draw on experiences in other states and countries.

The people I talked to in British and international organizations made the same points about reaching out to underserved groups that were emphasized repeatedly in meetings of the State Parks vision process:

-- It is not enough to inform people that they will be welcome in parks, or even provide free transportation or admission. We must overcome cultural barriers.

-- Different groups have different needs. We must reach out to their leaders to find out what their specific concerns are and determine how to meet them. This must be done through personal relationships built on trust.

-- Children are easier to reach than adults, for example, through schools and youth groups. Their parents and grandparents will follow.

A lot more has been done in Britain than in California to put these ideas into practice. Thanks to Judy Ling Wong, director of the Black Environment Network, I met with several people who connect underserved groups with parks in that country. (The "Black" in BEN’s name is symbolic; the group works with all ethnic groups.) In London, they included BEN’s Adam Brown, Gaye Galvin of Groundwork Camden, and Christine Wildhaber and Kurban Haji, who run a multiethnic garden as part of the park system of the borough of Southwark. I also met with Joanne Smith of the Camley Street Natural Park, a tiny, well-used place that sits in the midst of an industrial zone. In Northamptonshire, sixty-five miles north of London, I visited Freddie D’Souza and Joanna Lang of the county park department, who arranged for me to meet with leaders of Afro-Caribbean and South Asian groups involved in putting on a major annual multicultural festival in a country park.

I was inspired by what I learned from these people and believe it would be valuable to look more carefully at how they work and include similar visits in any study trips to Britain.

A critical element of outreach is outdoor education for schoolchildren. On my recent trip, I talked with Matthias Finger, a friend who is a political scientist and education specialist at the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration. Dr. Finger did a study several years ago for the Swiss National Science Foundation on efficacy of education about the environment. He found that there is no substitute for childhood nature experiences or hands-on involvement in local issues. Without such direct experience, teaching about environmental issues can actually breed cynicism about the environment and participation in community life. Even if we have only brief childhood experiences in nature, these are pivotal formative events: we draw on them for the rest of our lives.

In California, opportunities for outdoor education are very uneven. In some areas of the state, they are restricted mainly by capacity of venues or cultural barriers; in other areas they are limited more by lack of money or transportation. At the State Parks vision workshops, we heard stories of young people who have never seen the ocean even though they have grown up in neighborhoods only a few miles from the coast.

State Parks could develop a comprehensive outreach strategy in cooperation with other organizations that are grappling with the same issues. For example, the U.S. National Park Service recently launched a Community Partnerships Program on race, culture, and diversity that includes projects in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The U.S. Forest Service has produced several studies on ethnic groups and outdoor recreation in Southern California. California Outdoor School Administrators and the Sierra Club’s Youth in Wilderness program could provide guidance on outdoor education. Other groups could be mentioned.

CIPA is drafting a paper with specific recommendations and will consider organizing a social-science research project to assist State Parks in crafting an outreach strategy.. 

In addition, CIPA has been invited to organize a project to examine efforts around the world to make protected areas more relevant to urban populations and different ethnic groups. This project would be conducted as part of the program of IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas. Results would be presented and discussed at the fifth decennial World Parks Congress to be held in Durban, South Africa, in September 2002. State Parks could participate in this project.

Innovative things are being done in Australia and South Africa to link ethnic groups with parks, and this topic should be included in the proposed study trips to those countries, as well as to Britain.

Three other ideas emerged from my discussions of this topic:

-- As different groups start using them, nature parks can become places for building a community that cuts across ethnic and class lines. In Britain, for example, multicultural festivals in country parks are an important means of promoting mutual understanding, and have led to more use of the parks by minority groups. In South Africa, Kruger National Park is used for meetings that bring together leaders of different social groups to discuss issues facing the country.

-- If State Parks did more in their neighborhoods, people of color might be more interested in applying for jobs in the state park system. Several of the ideas discussed in this paper, such as the Groundwork-type program and outdoor education for disadvantaged students, could make State Parks more attractive to them as a career.

-- It would be helpful for staff involved in outreach to ethnic communities to have training and advice from professionals in intergroup relations. John Maguire, president emeritus of Claremont Graduate University, directs a project that is distilling best practice from programs designed to improve race relations in the United States. He recommends that such training start at the top of any organization. 

3. Park units to celebrate California writers and literature

In most parts of the world, important writers are commemorated by making their homes into shrines and museums, putting up monuments, and giving their names to city streets. Little of this is done in California, which has an extraordinarily rich literary heritage for a place with a short history.

To use a term in the State Parks vision paper, California writers and their work are a glaring "cultural theme deficiency" in both the state and national park systems. Only two state sites focus on major literary figures, those devoted to Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson; the national system includes the houses of John Muir and Eugene O’Neill. Although a few other writers are represented in sites operated by nonprofits, notably the splendid new National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, many important figures aren’t commemorated at all. And none of the sites mentioned are in Southern California, where so many writers have worked and so much of the state’s population is concentrated.

The traditional way of celebrating writers is to preserve their homes. This is not a very practical approach in California, where writers’ residences are widely scattered and usually not very interesting anyway. It might make better sense to create one highly visible site, or perhaps one each in Northern and Southern California.

Natural park settings would be ideal. California’s landscape and literature are inseparable: in a sense, the land is a character in almost every story set in the state.

The Los Angeles area, which has no literary park units and is underrepresented generally in the state park system, is the logical place to start. Perhaps an easily accessible site could be found overlooking the city from the Santa Monica Mountains or the foothills of the San Gabriels.

A structure could be built that reflected the rhythms of the surrounding landscape: "of the hill," not on it, as Frank Lloyd Wright put it. The building would have major exhibits on authors in California from the earliest times to the present. These exhibits would represent the full range of writing, concentrating on creative literature, and include a section on freedom of expression. The Steinbeck Center beautifully demonstrates what can be done with an interactive, multimedia approach to telling the story of authors and their work.

The site would also have spaces for public readings and lectures and perhaps offices of writing-related groups. It would thus be a living symbol of the importance of writing in the regional culture.

In researching this idea and discussing it with officials of writers’ organizations, I found that many countries have sites that commemorate individual writers and a few have small museums of national or regional literature, but there are no examples of a complex such as proposed here. If California did something along these lines, we would be playing our familiar role as cultural innovator.

This project might best be carried out by a partnership among public agencies and nonprofits. CIPA is drafting a paper on next steps.

4. A new kind of park to protect large-scale working landscapes

Some countries have established large-scale protected areas for lived-in, working landscapes that have special natural and cultural values. In the language of IUCN’s protected area management categories, these are Category V areas or "Protected Landscapes." Most of these are in Europe, where they are used mainly to protect distinctive landscapes created by farming, and traditional ways of life.

In California, such areas might be particularly useful as connections between more strictly protected areas. The Science and Management of Protected Areas Association (SAMPAA) has published a report on this topic, Linking Protected Areas with Working Landscapes (1998).

The best way of exploring the relevance of this concept for California would be to visit parks that protect working landscapes on one of the proposed study trips. The two parks that have been suggested are:

-- Yorkshire Dales National Park, England. This is a 437,000-acre park west of York that is ninety percent in private ownership. It is a farmed landscape with stone villages and limestone gorges. Like other English national parks, it is run by a special local authority within the framework of national laws and funding. 

-- Cévennes National Park, France. Located where the Mediterranean zone meets the Massif Central, this park covers 226,000 acres. It includes medieval castles and villages, sheep-grazing country famed for Roquefort cheese, and deep gorges. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a book about the Cévennes, Travels on a Donkey (1879). 

In England, the Countryside Agency has produced a series of detailed regional landscape assessments and "countryside character" planning documents. CIPA has sample copies of these publications, which are good examples of what can be done along these lines.

There are also interesting examples of protected landscapes in Australia, especially in the states of New South Wales and South Australia, which could be visited on the proposed study trip to that country.

The best example in the United States is the New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve, a one-million-acre "affiliated area" of the U.S. National Park Service that is about two-thirds in private ownership. The NPS Olmstead Center for Landscape Preservation in Boston is concerned with small cultural landscapes such as battlefields and historic towns, but has expressed interest in working on the idea of large-scale protected landscapes.

CIPA is drafting a paper on this topic.

5. A transborder complex of protected areas in California-Baja California

In the early 1990s, State Parks started working with Mexican officials to create a structure for collaboration among parks in the Peninsular Ranges ecological region on both sides of the California-Baja California border. On the California side, the complex included Mt. San Jacinto, Palomar Mountain, and Cuyamaca Rancho state parks; on the Mexican side, Constitución de 1857 and San Pedro Mártir national parks. Extending the Pacific Crest Trail south of the border was also suggested.

The institutional structure proposed was a transborder biosphere reserve. In principle, this would be a good choice. A biosphere reserve is a "soft" international designation that is relatively easy to establish in the United States and is not subject to an international convention. Also, the concept is a familiar one in Mexico, where it carries more legal weight. Unfortunately, creating new biosphere reserves is not currently a viable option because they have become a sensitive political issue in the United States (see point 13).

However, other models are available. The most successful one is the International Sonoran Desert Alliance, a nonprofit organization set up in 1992 to bring together government officials and business and civic leaders from Mexico, the U.S., and the Tohono O’odham Nation. Its focus is the western Sonoran Desert and the upper Gulf of California, a region that comprises the largest contiguous area of protected areas in the Americas. ISDA promotes collaboration on resource issues and carries out environmental education and youth involvement projects. Funding comes from several U.S. federal agencies and the Ford Foundation.

CIPA will make specific recommendations.

6. Interpreting parks based on their inspirational value

Edwin Bernbaum of Berkeley, senior fellow of The Mountain Institute and author of Sacred Mountains of the World, is working with the U.S. National Park Service to develop ways of taking into account the cultural and spiritual significance of mountains in park interpretation. 

Dr. Bernbaum’s idea is that mountains are associated with the highest and deepest ideals and aspirations of society. Drawing on traditions of diverse cultures around the world, his group is helping to produce trail guides, exhibits, signs, interpretive walks, campfire presentations, videos, and outreach programs. State Parks could invite Dr. Bernbaum to include a unit of the state park system in his pilot project.

Good examples to learn from

7. Master plans

In California, responsibility for managing parks and other protected areas is fragmented among federal, state, and local agencies and nonprofit organizations. One idea that has emerged from the State Parks vision process is that a comprehensive master plan be developed for all protected areas in the state. Promoting systematic planning is one of the top priorities of IUCN.  CIPA has suggested ways for State Parks to interact with IUCN in this area. 

8. Biodiversity

California is one of the most important centers of species diversity on Earth. One frequently used list (Norman Myers’ "hotspots" of endemism) ranks California twelfth among such areas. Since California is such a major global player from a biological standpoint, it might make sense for the state agencies responsible for protecting biodiversity to be better connected to the international institutions that work in that field. CIPA has suggested ways for State Parks to interact with IUCN in this area. 

9. Marine parks

California could do much more with marine protected areas within the state’s three-mile limit. State Parks staff have prepared a modest proposal for adding marine units to the state park system. It is a move in the right direction, but what is really needed is the integrated approach that would be used in developing a comprehensive master plan for protected areas in California (see point 7). Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is invariably pointed to as the best example of what can be done with marine protected areas. A visit to the reef should be included in any study trip to Australia. IUCN is compiling case studies of other good examples of marine protected areas; CIPA will provide them to State Parks as they become available. CIPA has made other specific recommendations in this area. 

10. Cultural heritage

I did not look into the cultural side of things, except for literature, protected cultural landscapes, and interpretation of parks based on their inspirational value. However, any Californian who travels even casually to other countries is struck by how much more attention they give to preserving and promoting their cultural heritage. This topic should be included in the proposed outreach strategy (point 2) and the agendas of the proposed study trips. CIPA is making specific recommendations. 

11. Long-distance trails

Europe is much more advanced than we are in developing systems of long-distance hiking and biking trails. For example, one hiking trail (E-1) extends from northern Sweden to southern Italy, another (E-3) from Spain to Turkey. Their example should inspire us to do more. Study trips to European countries should include visits to trails and trail organizations. 

Ways to sustain international involvement

12. IUCN and the World Commission on Protected Areas

Staff members of State Parks participate in several organizations involved in international park issues (e.g., the George Wright Society, the International Ranger Federation, and the U.S. Man and the Biosphere Program). However, the department has not been represented in the major international forum concerned with natural parks, IUCN and its World Commission for Protected Areas, described in the introduction to this paper..

For several reasons, it is probably unrealistic to propose that State Parks join IUCN as a member organization. A more practical approach might be to arrange for one or two State Parks staff members to be appointed to the World Commission on Protected Areas. Prerequisites for appointment are active involvement in international park affairs and willingness to contribute to WCPA’s global program. Another IUCN body of interest to State Parks is the Species Survival Commission, which includes over a hundred specialist groups focused on types of animals and plants, as well as management issues such as controlling invasive species.

Other park services at the subnational level have been actively involved in IUCN, and currently two such agencies are making substantial contributions. The KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation Service of South Africa is co-hosting the next World Parks Congress. The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service of Australia has loaned a staff member to the parks program at IUCN headquarters in Switzerland for several years.

CIPA will provide State Parks with further information and contacts.  

13. Biosphere reserves

This is not a favorable time to explore how to enhance the role of biosphere reserves, because Congress has made it difficult for federal agencies to participate in them, at least until the end of the next fiscal year. At some point in the future, however, State Parks may wish to examine how active participation in biosphere reserves could enhance protection and management of state park units within them.

Biosphere reserves are areas that are internationally recognized within the framework of the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) program of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). They consist of a core protected area, or cluster of such areas, a buffer or support zone, and an outer transition zone. 

Under UNESCO guidelines, each biosphere reserve is intended to fulfill three complementary functions: (1) conservation of landscapes, ecosystems, species, and genetic variation; (2) local economic development that is culturally, socially, and ecologically sustainable; and (3) research, monitoring, education, and information exchange related to local, national, and global issues of conservation and development.

Biosphere reserves are potentially a very useful means of coordinating the activities of different land-management agencies in a region. In addition, one of their main purposes is to foster international exchange of information and experience. UNESCO has set up a network of committees for this purpose.

There are currently 337 biosphere reserves in 85 countries. In the United States, which has 47 biosphere reserves, the program is coordinated by the U.S. MAB office in the Department of State.

California has eight biosphere reserves, of which three include units of the state park system:

-- The Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve, which includes several state parks in the Bay Area, along with federal lands and marine sanctuaries, local government properties, and University of California and private reserves;

-- The California Coast Ranges Biosphere Reserve, which includes several redwood state parks, as well as other state and federal lands and UC and private reserves; and

-- The Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve, which includes Anza Borrego Desert State Park, as well as extensive areas under federal jurisdiction and a UC research center.

In 1988, additional biosphere reserves for California were proposed by an ad hoc U.S. MAB panel. Some of these included state parks.

The Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve is the only one in California that has had an active interagency committee. One of the reasons that so little progress has been made in implementing this concept is that it is easily misunderstood. Biosphere reserves are not really reserves at all, in the usual meaning of that term. Also, they are often confused with World Heritage Sites (of which California has two, Redwood and Yosemite national parks).

CIPA can provide further information about biosphere reserves.

14. Sister park systems

State Parks has been involved in technical cooperation with developing countries on an ad hoc basis for many years, with expenses covered from sources outside state government. A more ambitious and systematic way of fostering such cooperation would be through sister park systems.

Sister park arrangements, usually called "twinning" or "pairing" in the international park community, have become fairly common. For example, Yellowstone National Park is paired with Abruzzo National Park in Italy. The Cévennes National Park in France, mentioned above in the discussion of cultural landscapes, is twinned with the Saquenay Provincial Park in Quebec, Canada, and the Montseny Reserve in Catalonia, Spain. Through a program of the European Union, a number of European parks have been twinned with parks in Latin America.

Several people have suggested that because California’s state park units are relatively small, pairing between park systems would be more sustainable than arrangements between individual parks. Anza Borrego Desert State Park could be an exception because of its large size..

Individuals closely associated with the state park system are interested in exploring how California could make sister park arrangements. State Parks staff could be involved in study trips, technical assistance missions, and longer-term staff exchanges, as could academics and professional staff of nonprofit conservation groups. The program could be funded partially through tours open to the public.

Experience has shown that sister park arrangements must be based on genuine partnerships and long-term commitment. Sensitivity to cultural differences is required on both sides, as is plenty of patience.

CIPA can provide further information on sister parks arrangements, including contacts. The IUCN World Conservation Congress to be held in Jordan in October would be a good opportunity to explore possibilities.

15. International visitors and study trips abroad

Specific recommendations will be made for inviting international experts to California and organizing group study trips to other countries. These activities would be funded from nongovernmental sources. 

Contacts

This is a list of people with whom I have had extended conversations or correspondence for this project. An asterisk (*) indicates a face-to-face meeting. I greatly appreciate the help these people gave me and apologize if I have left anyone out.

California

*Participants in meetings in Oakland, Los Angeles, and Carmel held as part of the State Parks vision process

*Rusty Areias, director, California Department of Parks and Recreation, and members of DPR staff

*Edwin Bernbaum, senior fellow, The Mountain Institute, Berkeley

*Sherrill Britton, executive director, PEN Center USA West, Los Angeles

*Richard Chute, director of development, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, Claremont

*Norbert Dall, Dall Associates, Sacramento

*Stephanie Dall, Dall Associates, Sacramento

*Pete Dangermond, principal, The Dangermond Group, Sacramento; former director, California Department of Parks and Recreation

*Julie Didion, program coordinator, California Institute of Public Affairs, Sacramento

*Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director, Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, Malibu

*Pat Flanagan, director of education, San Diego Natural History Museum, San Diego

*William L. Fox, literary advisor, Western States Arts Federation, Los Angeles

*Monty Hempel, director of environmental programs, University of Redlands

*Melinda Joyce, Youth in Wilderness Sacramento representative, Sierra Club

Mark Lellouch, Frontier Cooperative, Boulder, Colorado

*John D. Maguire, president emeritus, Claremont Graduate University, and director, Institute for Democratic Renewal

*Michael Paparian, senior regional representative, Sierra Club, Sacramento

*Murray Rosenthal, state parks chairman, Sierra Club California, Los Angeles

*Paul Smith, attorney, Pasadena; partner, Twenty-nine Palms Inn, Twenty-nine Palms; CIPA board chairman

Britain

*Jaki Bayly, Countryside Agency, Cheltenham

*Adam Brown, England development officer, Black Environment Network, London

*John Davidson, founder and former national director, Groundwork, Cheltenham

*Freddie D’Souza, countryside network officer, Northamptonshire County County Council, Northampton, and friends

*Vicki Elcoate, director, Council for National Parks, London

*Gaye Galvin, Groundwork Camden, London

*Steve Grainger, regional director for London and the Southeast, Groundwork, London

*Bryn Green, professor of countryside management emeritus, Wye College, University of London, Dover

*Kurban Haji, ranger, Chumleigh Gardens, Southwark, London

*Joanna Lang, ranger, Brixworth Country Park, Northamptonshire

*Emma Loat, policy officer, Council for National Parks, London

*Simon Murray, Countryside Agency, Cheltenham

*Adrian Phillips, chairman, World Commission on Protected Areas, IUCN, Dumbleton

*Steve Robinson, chief executive, The Environment Council, London

*Joanne Smith, project officer, Camley Street Natural Park, Camden, London

*Sarah Whyatt, International PEN, London 

*Christine Wildhaber, ranger, Chumleigh Gardens, Southwark, London

*Judy Ling Wong, director, Black Environment Network, Llanberis, Wales

Other

Staff of IUCN, Gland, Switzerland, including Jeff McNeely, chief scientist, Wendy Goldstein, education officer, and David Sheppard and Peter Shadie, parks officers

Bruce Amos, director general, Parks Canada, Ottawa

Jessica Brown, vice president, Atlantic Center for the Environment, Ipswich, Massachusetts

Julia Clark, International Sonoran Desert Alliance, Ajo, Arizona

*Matthias Finger, professor of public management, Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration, Lausanne, Switzerland

*Andrea Finger-Stich, consultant to international organizations, Archamps, France

*J. Michael McCloskey, environmental policy consultant, Portland, Oregon; former executive director and chairman, Sierra Club

Denis O’Gorman, assistant deputy minister, Parks Division, British Columbia Ministry of Environment, Lands, and Parks, Victoria

Richard Saunier, consultant, Organization of American States, Santa Fe, New Mexico

California Institute of Public Affairs 

P.O. Box 189040

Sacramento, California 95818, USA

Tel. (1 916) 442-2472

www.cipahq.org

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