Campaign Briefs Learn More About San Gabriel Mountains Forever and about how you can help out. Click here for more information. Hiking and Forest Restoration Projects Join us on fun, conservation-oriented hikes to special forest places such as the Pleasant View Ridge proposed wilderness area and the East and West Forks of the San Gabriel River. Click here for more information, time, and dates. Reaching Out To People Of Faith Learn about this new forest stewardship program. Click here.

You Have Two Final Opportunities to Support A Visionary Proposal For a San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area

Join Us at a final public meeting in Tujunga on October 28th and submit written comments by clicking here.

Hundreds of Sierra Club volunteers, community leaders and concerned citizens turned out at five public meetings in September to express their overwhelming support for a San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area. The new recreation area - modeled after the successful one in the Santa Monica Mountains - would preserve existing recreational opportunities while better protecting forest open space and adding sorely needed new recreational resources. The visionary proposal could bring in more rangers, law enforcement personnel, and improved interpretive services. It could add hiking trails, picnic and camp sites and better connect the millions of people who live near our forests with this magnificent resource through a series on interconnected parks and trails.

A congressionally mandated study team hosted the five meetings to get public comment on a bold set of proposals released in the draft San Gabriel Watershed and Mountains Special Resources Study. The best of the proposals would improve water quality in the San Gabriel River and address its concentrated use areas that need more trash cans, restrooms, safe river access and stewardship program.

"I attended the meeting in Diamond Bar to express my support for a San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area and the watershed study team really listened," said Mary Ann Ruiz from Chino. "It is great to know that as citizens we can have positive impact on the future of the Gabriels Mountains."

If the National Recreation Area proposal is to have any chance of becoming a reality, we need your support for it on October 28th at 7 p.m. in Tujunga (click here if you can attend and we will email you more details). San Gabriel Mountains Forever volunteers will be available to give you recommended comments beginning at 6:30 p.m. as well as an "Our Kids Need an NRA!" lapel sticker. The resources study team will be making a presentation at 7 p.m. sharp, followed by a Q & A period and a chance for public comment. Opponents of these proposals will no doubt be there, too, including people who want to see more motorcycle and jeep trails in our forest backcountry-so we need you to be there to make sure our voices are heard.

Over one hundred people filled the Glendora Public Library to express their comments on the visionary proposals released by the National Park Service to establish a San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area.

The San Gabriel Mountains watershed study area includes most of the San Gabriel Mountains and cities south from Glendora to Whittier and El Monte. The study team has been working for two years to draft a range of alternative proposals which include the newly conceived National Recreation Area. The study results will eventually be submitted to Congress for action after the study is revised based on public input and suggestions.

The draft study has found that the San Gabriel Mountains are nationally significant, which means that they are eligible for added federal resources and rangers. This means our historic mountain range could be incorporated into a new San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area modeled after the highly successful Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area created on the western reaches of Los Angeles in 1978. The special resource study is being conducted by the National Park Service.

The San Gabriel Mountains Forever campaign supports a combination of the best of the study group' s Alternatives A and C, having the maximum amount of the Angeles National Forest in the NRA as in the study group's Alternative A with the National Recreation Area and community recreation network presented in Alternative C. Alternative C would benefit from added resources supplied by the National Park Service, but the Forest Service would retain its authority to manage national forest lands in the San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area.

The Angeles National Forest is one of the top three most heavily used recreational forests in the United States and it is located next to the nation's second largest urban population, yet the Forest Service spends most of its annual budget on firefighting, not enhancing the visitor experience or protecting the resource. The Angeles Forest spends only about one dollar per visitor on law enforcement, educational materials, interpretive services, and visitor center management. According to a study conducted for the San Gabriel Mountains Forever Campaign, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area spends 15 times more per visitor supporting education and recreation than does the Angeles Nation Forest.

What is remarkable about the San Gabriel Mountains special resource study is that it could be a game changer, providing Congress with the rationale to improve the relationship between Angelenos and the historic mountains and rivers in their backyard.

For more information on how you can help out, call Juana Torres at 213-387-6528 x226.