State park

And you drive down the highway and you can feel it and you see the growth.

And one of the, I think we should dive into the state park fiasco because it's so representative of what we're talking about.

I think so.

So I'll go quick and then correct the pieces of the information if I get them wrong.

But basically news got out that the state of Florida was going to open up some sort of development on a particular state park.

I believe it was some accommodations and potentially a golf course and things like that.

That went on social media.

And Floridians looked at that and said, hell no.

But the biggest modern threat came in the form of a toll road wherein the county proposed a 16 mile long six lane freeway that would cut directly through the state park, covering roughly 320 acres.

Save trestles became the rallying cry for the previously disparate lovers of this land to lock arms and prove that the cultural significance of this land had more value undeveloped than it has fiscal value.

State Parks lifeguard and founder of the San Onofre Parks Foundation, Steve Long, was a key figure in that fight.

The Transportation Corridor Authority intended to build a toll road through the San Mateo Valley, terminating at Trestles.

The impacts were both environmental, cultural.

So It's a really unique experience, but that makes it very vulnerable to the coastal dynamics and processes that exist on a beach, which is just the ever-marching move back of that coastal line and that surf line from oceanward to landward.

Right now, and like I said, since that major 2016 El Nino, we've seen that road getting narrower and narrower.

In 2017, I believe, state parks erected a revetment, so a bunch of big boulder rocks to shore up the narrowest pinch point of that road, which was the action that they took at the time to do what they could to make sure that that road remained accessible.

But those lands are not available for public recreation.

So our county parks and our state parks are the core, and then our city parks are the core of what's available to the public.

So the bank was created, the trust was created to help other entities add to those lands.

We're growing rapidly, developing rapidly.

There's always a concern about investment of local dollars and that local tax dollars are not unlimited.

But with that, in those first five years, we've helped protect, working with our partners, we've protected 34 different parcels.

We've added to all three state parks.

We've added that new County Regional Park, which is called Oakland Plantation.

This is the podcast where we inspire hope by talking with people around the globe who are doing the work of connecting kids and communities to the natural world to care for and protect the places where we play.

A few years back, I ran a study with California State Parks looking at what field trips actually change in a kid.

I expected to find more love for nature.

What I found instead was more confidence.

Children need to be outside, and so do adults.

Yeah, 100%.

You mentioned the pandemic, and in the early years of the pandemic, I conducted a study in collaboration with California State Parks and Cal Poly Humboldt University looking at the impact of field trips to California State Parks.

And I had an assumption that students were going to walk away from those experiences with an increased motivation to care for and protect themselves.

That's crazy.

Isn't it crazy? You got to go to State Park.

State

Park's still there.

Yeah.

You know, it was Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department and, you know, state parks and all the people.

And then eventually the ambulance and stuff came.

and

So she has created this nonprofit called the Minutes Matter Project.

Okay.

It's kind of in the early days of getting started, but basically what it is is she's working with state parks to put these little emergency boxes together to prevent hemorrhage, basically, to prevent people from bleeding out because... right like if you get attacked by a shark or some other really bad thing happens at one of these remote beaches especially like blues or something like that yeah like you need to have tourniquets and other things like that available yeah immediately like you

bleed stop or whatever that's powder stuff is as well or maybe tourniquets are the more yeah yeah um so

KUT's Mose Buchel reports they told parks officials to use their power to keep construction out of state parkland.

Before the hearing, protesters gathered in front of State Parks headquarters, played music, and listed reasons for opposing barrier construction.

Patrick Zuberbuehler's family has ranched in Val Verde County, just east of the Big Bend, since the 1800s.

He said the barriers would fragment the family ranch and threaten archaeological sites.

And for me to play possum would be tragic.

Earlier this week, federal officials announced a pause in construction in Big Bend National Park.

Speakers at the hearing said that pause did not meet their demands for an end to construction in state parks and throughout the region.

Paul Foster, the chair of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, told speakers he and the commission generally agreed with their message.

a lot of integrity and resilience.

And I think this particular rescue that Rod had performed really exemplifies what we're looking for in a state park life.

And you

couldn't let go for an instance.

Yeah,

really amazing, but you have no idea the respect.

Joel, where's Joel? State Park Superintendent, Lifeguard Santa Cruz.

Joel, thank you very much.