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RESTORING NATIVE COMMUNITIES IN THE PRESIDIO NATIONAL PARK
In 1994, the San Francisco Presidio Army base was decommissioned and transferred to the National Park Service (NPS). This was an unprecedented conversion of a military post to a national park. The new Presidio park's mission is to "pioneer a new role for a national park by creating a global center dedicated to addressing the world's most critical environmental, social, and cultural challenges."
Following this historic conversion in 1994, The Cultural Conservancy sponsored an Indigenous Earth Day Event at Fort Scott with Ohlone leader Ann Marie Sayers, Pomo leader Joe Meyers, Indigenous restoration expert Dennis Martinez, Lakota educator Robert LaBatte, and Cherokee ecologist Emily Schwalen. Our goal was to educate the public about the fact that before the U.S. military or the Mexican and Spanish governments colonized this land, it was the homelands of California Indians, specifically, bands of the Ohlone (Costanoan) nation. In 1996, the Cultural Conservancy was one of the first twenty nonprofit organizations to move to the new Presidio National Park in the historic Thoreau Center for Sustainability .
Over these years, we have supported a process of coalition building among San Francisco Bay Area native groups and other organizations involved in cultural and environmental restoration. This has been
accomplished by providing public education events and workshops about native land restoration opportunities, past cultural traditions as well as the living traditions of today's California native peoples.
The Cultural Conservancy's role is to organize opportunities for dialogue and to provide the educational framework within which Native American leaders can lead discussions and determine the outcome and direction of land and cultural restoration work.
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Over the past six years we have worked closely with the National Park Service (Natural Resources Division, the Presidio Native Plant Nursery, the Site Stewardship Program, and the Restoration Team for Crissy Field), the National Parks Conservation Association, and other organizations to:
… Restore native plant communities
… Acknowledge and honor the Native American history of the park
… Respect and consult with contemporary Ohlone community leaders
… Educate biologists about the Traditional Environmental Knowledge of California Indian people
… Develop more relevant public educational programs by and about Native Americans such as our "Through Native Eyes" Tour of the park,
and
… Protect rare and endangered cultural places such as shellmounds and other archeological sites at Crissy Field and elsewhere in the Presidio.
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In addition to consulting on the Crissy Field Restoration Project and facilitating meetings with the NPS and Ohlone communities, we have been working on planning the restoration for El Polin Springs and the Tennessee Hollow watershed, with particular emphasis on the serpentine grassland adjacent to El Polin Springs. Through support from the Switzer Environmental Leadership Program, we worked on the El Polin Springs Restoration Plan for the ecological restoration of the riparian corridor from freshwater spring to the recently restored Crissy Field salt marsh.
Through this project we have developed an Ethnoecology resource guide, a walking tour of the watershed, and a culture map. Executive Director Melissa Nelson continues to consult with park service programs to protect and restore park resources and advocate for Native American concerns. The El Polin Springs Restoration Planning Project has been financially supported by the San Francisco Foundation and the Switzer Environmental Leadership Award.
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