Regular readers of Coast & Ocean know that last year was the “International Year of Ecotourism.” Ecotourism has enjoyed something of a vogue during the last several years, with newspaper and magazine stories, conferences, special reports, and so on. Coast & Ocean devoted an entire issue to what it called “nature tourism” as early as 1997 (Spring), and in late March of this year I was invited to give a brief speech on the topic at a breakfast meeting in Sacramento. I may have caused some indigestion, though: I started by suggesting that the first thing we needed to do about ecotourism was to stop using the word.

Who really wants to be known as an “ecotourist?” Who wants to be known as any kind of tourist? I don’t have a better word; I prefer to talk about camping, hiking, backpacking, and bird watching, all activities that I freely profess and enjoy whenever possible. For lack of anything better I call it nature tourism.

Of course, the point of the breakfast meeting was that tourism in California is really big, and that nature tourism could and should be part of it. According to our Division of Tourism, travel and tourism expenditures in California amount to over $75 billion annually, provide employment for over one million Californians, and generate almost $5 billion in State and local tax revenue.

California’s coastline is a prime area for nature tourism, already enjoyed by visitors and residents alike. Thanks to the many large-scale restoration projects now under way up and down our coast, this will only get better. Indeed, in some parts of California you can even go on restoration tours. California’s coastline has an additional competitive advantage: a permanent in-house advertising campaign. Movies, television, and music have made our south coast beaches famous throughout the world. Along with our rocky shores, coastal redwood forests, whales, elephant seals, and otters, they are among the Golden State’s greatest tourist attractions.

The Coastal Conservancy is doing its part to improve nature tourism opportunities in California. In southern California, the Conservancy is working with others to develop a birding and watchable wildlife corridor between San Diego and Santa Barbara Counties. We envision a well-coordinated system of sites at which birds and other wildlife could be viewed and for which visitors would be provided with a wide range of informational materials. Corridor facilities and informational materials would be closely tied to other related tourist attractions, and marketing for the corridor would be coordinated with other tourist marketing efforts.

Much of the physical support for nature tourism is already in place on California’s coast, and additional improvements (such as highway and interpretive signs) could be readily added. Funding from recent bond acts is available for construction of trails and other visitor-serving facilities. For instance, within Proposition 50, 10 percent of the funds available to the Coastal Conservancy must go to access and visitor-serving facilities. The Conservancy and its many partners continue to open new pathways to beaches and to develop the California Coastal Trail, which one day will stretch along the coast from Oregon to Mexico, as well as regional trails around our major bays.

One of the most important things we can do is take a more expansive view of nature tourism, and this is why I don’t like the term “ecotourism.” It has always seemed a little elitist to me, as if it excludes the broad range of active recreational pastimes like sea kayaking and white-water rafting as well as consumptive activities like hunting and fishing. According to the most recent information from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, hunting, fishing, and wildlife viewing added up to over $6.5 billion of economic activity in California. Marine recreational fishing alone is a multi-billion dollar enterprise in this state. Arguably, hunting and fishing were the earliest forms of nature tourism. They have a long history in the western United States, and were among the earliest reasons Easterners came to visit. California’s own history includes inventing new forms of outdoor recreation. Mountain biking was invented here, the first sailboards were built here, and many of the premier outdoor equipment companies were launched in California.

We have a great big beautiful state with all sorts of outdoor activities, some old and some new, and we’re constantly thinking up new ones. This combination of natural beauty and creative spirit is an enormous tourist asset, and we ought to be thinking holistically about how to capitalize on it. Thinking holistically means breaking down the boxes around individual outdoor activities, and packaging California as a place to combine a wide variety of natural recreational activities all in one trip. The message should be that California has something outdoors for everyone—even ecotourists!

Sam Schuchat is the executive officer of the Coastal Conservancy.

Between January and April, the Coastal Conservancy enabled a wide variety of projects to begin, advance, or be completed along the California coast and on San Francisco Bay. These include efforts to resolve land use conflicts, eradicate invasive alien plants, restore wetland habitat, and acquire land for conservation, public access, and recreation in collaboration with other resource agencies, local governments, private landowners, and land trusts. Most of the Conservancy’s funds for these projects came from Proposition 40, the resources bond act passed by voters last March, and Proposition 12, the parks bond act of 2000.

The Yurok Tribe, in Humboldt County, will use $50,000 from the Conservancy to prepare a master plan for the 12.5-acre Tsurai Village site in an effort to resolve a conflict related to a public trail and protection of cultural resources. The village stood on the side of a bluff overlooking the harbor in what is now Trinidad. Its last inhabitant was removed in 1916. In 1997 the Tribe built a trail following an ancient pathway that runs along the edge of the village site and down the bluff to the ocean. It passes Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse, which stands above the village site. Hikers have at times strayed to the site and disturbed it. Trinidad resident John Frame, joined by the Tsurai Ancestral Society, filed a lawsuit against the City of Trinidad demanding that the blufftop Wagner Street Trail be closed or relocated, and that control of the village site be turned over to the Tribe. The Tribe will manage the planning process with the City and the Tsurai Ancestral Society to ensure that all interests are represented in the plan, and in hopes of resolving the conflict.

Circuit Rider Productions, a nonprofit organization, will remove invasive giant reed, Arundo donax, from about 150 locations on 70 acres along the Russian River in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties, and will restore native vegetation, using $500,000 approved by the Conservancy and $400,000 from the State Water Resources Control Board. The work is to be completed in three years. Arundo donax is a tall bamboo-like grass that forms dense stands and crowds out native vegetation along streams and rivers, constricts water flows, and is extremely flammable. It has also overrun the watersheds of many rivers in southern California, where agencies are spending millions of dollars to control it.

Sonoma Coast State Beach will be expanded by the addition of the 910-acre Red Hill Ranch, including 40 acres of old-growth redwoods. The property was acquired by the Sonoma Land Trust for $2.7 million, using $1.37 million from the Sonoma County Agricultural and Open Space District and $1 million from the Coastal Conservancy. The Sonoma Land Trust structured the deal, managed the acquisition process, acted as interim owner, and secured funding for clean-up. The nonprofit LandPaths and State Parks are using volunteer crews to build trail links, and Stewards of Slavianka is prepared to take over volunteer stewardship functions.

The Bodega Bay Trail Loop will be completed when a half-mile segment is added at Pinnacle Gulch, connecting to Pinnacle Gulch Trail and becoming part of the California Coastal Trail. The Sonoma County Regional Parks Department expects to complete the segment by autumn, with the help of $80,000 from the Conservancy.

Public open space on Sausalito’s waterfront will expand significantly with the purchase of a 2.5-acre property for addition to the 1.8-acre Dunphy Park on Bridgeway Boulevard. The City of Sausalito will fund the purchase with $2.2 million from the Conservancy, of which $1 million will be reimbursed during the next 15 years from lease revenues collected for use of tidelands for an expanded marina. This property, the last privately owned undeveloped parcel on the Sausalito waterfront, includes 5.9 acres of submerged baylands. Marin County will arrange for $500,000 to be provided to the City.

San Francisco Bay wetlands gained 16,500 protected acres with the purchase of the South Bay Cargill Salt Ponds in March. Planning for restoration is now under way, coordinated by the Coastal Conservancy. Cargill is phasing out salt production, a process that will take one to eight years. As water in individual ponds is brought to San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board standards for release into the bay, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will take over management.

The $100 million acquisition price for these Cargill properties includes $72 million of State funds, $8 million from Fish and Wildlife, and $20 million from a consortium of the Hewlett, Moore, and Packard Foundations and the Goldman and Resources Legacy Funds. The private foundations are also providing $15 million toward the cost of initial stewardship and long-term restoration planning.

The 4,262-acre Rancho Corral de Tierra, just north of Half Moon Bay in San Mateo County, one of the largest privately owned undeveloped properties in the San Francisco Bay Area, was acquired by the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) for almost $30 million to protect open space, wildlife habitat, farmland, and recreational land. The Conservancy contributed $9 million toward the acquisition. POST intends to sell 250 acres to a farmer, subject to a conservation easement, and hopes to transfer the rest to the National Park Service.

Meanwhile, San Mateo County’s effort to purchase 15 acres on the shoreline just north of Half Moon Bay moved forward in February when the Coastal Conservancy allotted $1.5 million for the project, plus $100,000 to design a California Coastal Trail link, bridging a gap in the 14-mile trail between Pillar Point Harbor and Half Moon Bay. The County is working to raise another $1.5 million to meet the $3 million purchase price for this part of the 49-acre Mirada Surf property, which straddles Highway 1. It acquired the 34-acre eastern portion for $3 million in January.

San Mateo County’s Ryder Park will be improved with the help of a $400,000 grant from the Conservancy. A covered picnic area and restroom facilities will be built.

With $1.8 million approved by the Conservancy, 198 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains will be added to the Bear Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve. The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District will use the funds to buy property owned by the Presentation Center at the intersection of Summit and Bear Creek roads in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz Counties. It will also buy an additional 30 acres of timber harvest rights to protect the 100-year-old forest on adjacent land that the Presentation Center will continue to own.

In San Francisco, a $475,000 Conservancy grant to Friends of Recreation and Parks will fund the construction of a new overlook for wildlife viewing on Lake Merced, and the replacement of exotic plants by native species along the lakeshore.

At the northern edge of Big Sur, the 9,898-acre Palo Corona Ranch extends along the east side of Highway 1 and south from the Carmel River to the Ventana Wilderness in Los Padres National Forest, across 16 coastal watersheds. In 2002, the Nature Conservancy and the Big Sur Land Trust acquired the ranch with interim funding, in expectation that public agencies would eventually purchase it for permanent protection. A week later, Governor Gray Davis committed $32 million in state bond funds, and the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District committed $5 million to meet the purchase price of $37 million. The Coastal Conservancy provided $12.25 million in February to enable the Park District to acquire the 681 northernmost acres from the Land Trust and the Nature Conservancy. California State Parks and the Wildlife Conservation Board are expected to contribute $23 million for the purchase. The Park District will reimburse the Conservancy $3.2 million of its grant.

In San Luis Obispo County, State Parks will be able to acquire the 746-acre Sea West Ranch, which spans three miles of shoreline on the county’s northern coast, with $7 million from the Conservancy and $6.5 million from the Wildlife Conservation Board. State Parks will contribute $1 million to meet the purchase price. Because this property has been approved for subdivision and development of nine residential lots, this acquisition is considered crucial to the preservation strategy for the Harmony Coast.

The 1,566-acre Fairmont Ranch is the largest undeveloped, privately held open space in Ojai Valley. Extending three miles along the Ventura River, it includes five miles of tributary streams, mature riparian forest, dense oak woodlands, and rolling grasslands. It provides valuable habitat for southern steelhead and other wildlife, and has the potential for providing public access to trails throughout the region. The Ojai Valley Land Conservancy is seeking to acquire it for conservation, thereby staving off development plans for a golf course and estate homes. The acquisition cost is $3 million for 1,406 acres in fee plus 150 acres under conservation easement, based on fair market value appraisal. The Land Conservancy has signed a purchase agreement and borrowed funds to make payment of initial deposits amounting to $100,000. In January the Coastal Conservancy approved $3.1 million to the Land Conservancy, contingent on evaluation of its ability to manage the land in perpetuity and on completion of a conservation easement. The purchase, if accomplished, will constitute the largest conservation acquisition in Ventura County’s history.

The City of Huntington Beach is using $2 million approved by the Conservancy in January for the final stage of a ten-year improvement project at its ocean beaches. These include new restrooms, showers, and improvements to 1,760 feet of the California Coastal Trail.

A $1.2-million Conservancy grant to the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy will fund the acquisition of 45 acres of wetlands along the Pacific Coast Highway on either side of Magnolia Street. The nonprofit California Earth Corps will contribute $450,000 to the acquisition.

With $1 million from the Coastal Conservancy, San Diego County will plan and design habitat improvements and public trails for the new Tijuana River Valley Regional Park, west of Interstate 5, just north of the Mexican border.

The City of Imperial Beach continues to suffer from a stagnant economy and insufficient tax revenue. Important changes are occurring on its doorstep, however, with the development of trails and facilities at the Tijuana River Valley Regional Park and the San Diego Bay Trail, and restoration planning for the Tijuana Estuary and San Diego Bay. The city has two waterfront districts, one bordered by the ocean and the Tijuana Estuary, the other on San Diego Bay. While its beach has been the focus of attention, the City has taken note of the rise in popularity of birdwatching, hiking, and biking nationwide and proposes to take a fresh look at its potential for attracting and accommodating more visitors. In February the Conservancy approved $130,000 for the City to study ways to encourage tourism, public access to the coast, and private development in its urban waterfront district while maintaining its unique environmental values and small-town atmosphere.

NEW BAY TRAIL MAPS

A set of six beautiful up-to-date maps of the San Francisco Bay Trail network is now available. Prepared by the San Francisco Bay Trail Project for walkers, bicyclists, wildlife watchers, and others interested in exploring the shoreline, they show not only the completed 230 miles of this multi-use trail but also the entire planned 400-mile route. The backs of the maps are packed with useful information, including recommended routes, directions, points of interest, distances, trail surfaces, and public transit. To order, see www.baytrail.org or call (510) 464-7900.