California State Parks is systematically removing native chaparral habitat through herbicides, fire, and large grinding machines in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, San Diego County. The scars on the landscape continue to grow as State Parks clear-cuts habitat that is naturally regenerating after the 2003 Cedar Fire.

By falsely claiming an emergency exemption within the California Environmental Quality Act, a strategy that was declared invalid by the court in a similar situation, State Parks avoided conducting an honest, public analysis of their "reforestation" project. The maneuver excluded public comment and independent analysis. In doing so, California State Parks violated its own guidelines - to preserve and protect representative landscapes that have been dedicated to the State Park system, to be managed as "composite wholes," and to allow such landscapes to recover naturally from occurrences such as fire.

Such abuse of Cuyamaca is an insult to all who treasure Nature, from the Kumeyaay People who cherish it as their homeland (the original name for Stonewall Peak in the Park is "Cush-pi"), to visitors today who hope to experience a protected, natural landscape.

Further details about how State Parks is violating Nature at Cuyamaca can be found here:
https://californiachaparral.org/threats/cuyamaca-state-park/

PHOTO: Stonewall Peak. Foreground shows damage caused by an out-of-control prescribed burn - the spread of invasive, flammable cheat grass and damaged oaks that had survived the 2003 Cedar Fire.