After a 14-year battle to protect the rights of dog parents in the GGNRA, the National Park Service has withdrawn the proposed dog management plan. Here is the latest from Andrea Buffa, Save Our Recreation:
“This is a huge victory for the people of the Bay Area. For years, we’d been telling the park service that dog walking is an important form of recreation for us: it’s part of our way of life. Now, finally, they were forced to listen.
I’m thrilled that I’ll be able to keep going to Ft. Funston with my two Australian cattle dogs and get the exercise they and I both need. That’s what living in the Bay Area is about, and we were able to keep that intact.
The documents we discovered in the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit were damning enough that the Park Service felt like it couldn't move forward. We revealed that the process used to develop the dog rule was biased and there was misconduct by numerous Park Service officials. The Park Service corrupted its own process.
The only question we still have is San Mateo County. The Park Service took away all off-leash dog walking there when it took over those lands, even though people had been walking their dogs off leash there for decades. We need to make sure dog walking in San Mateo County stays protected."
For forty years, people have been welcome at the beaches and trails of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), which comprises 80,000 acres across San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo Counties. This public land provides much needed recreational space in the densely populated Bay Area. In fact, San Francisco was recently ranked the second densest city in the U.S. after New York City and is growing fast, which means that access to open recreational space is needed now more than ever.
Save Our Recreation is a developing organization that serves as an umbrella group to bring people and organizations supporting recreation together.
As advocates for the preservation of recreation in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) and a comprehensive process that includes public input, independent voices and thoughtful consideration before any changes are made to recreational areas, Save Our Recreation does not believe people and nature are incompatible. They believe that there can be a balance so that recreational opportunities can be protected while still being responsible stewards of the environment.
