Channel Islands Still Open to All 
The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) is thrilled to announce the defeat of the damaging last-minute provision in the National Defense Authorization bill that would have carved up part of Channel Islands National Park for military use, despite the fact that the Department of Defense made no such request. The proposal would also have closed all or part of Santa Rosa Island to the public, and undermined a court-agreed settlement, which would have phased out a profitable, privately-owned deer and elk hunting operation by 2011. “Congress and the American public effectively rebuked this outrageous effort to chop up a national park and deny the public full access,” says Craig Obey, NPCA’s Vice President of Government Affairs. “Channel Islands belongs to all Americans and to future generations; it is not a playground for a select few.
Our heritage is safe, at least for the moment, because of the efforts of Sen. John Warner (R-VA), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Sen. Craig Thomas (R-WY), Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA), and others, who stood up for Channel Islands.”
In 1996, NPCA sued the National Park Service for illegally permitting a private hunting operation on Santa Rosa Island, which closed the park to the public several months each year and negatively affected native wildlife, specifically the rare Santa Rosa Island manzanita.
