More Room to Roam

Channel Islands National Park, one of the most delightful features of Ventura County, is about to get a little bigger and better:

The nonprofit Nature Conservancy has agreed to give 8,000 acres of land on Santa Cruz Island to the park. Added to the 6,000 acres of the island that the park already controls, this gift will open up miles of rugged hiking trails, a wide sandy beach and access to the pier in Prisoner’s Harbor, a popular destination for boaters.

The gift will also allow park managers to expand their program of eradicating invasive nonnative species, undoing damage from a century of ranching and working to return the five islands to the condition they were in before the first human settlers arrived.

“It will allow public access to a much larger area of the island and it will allow the Park Service to start restoration of the natural ecosystem,” which has been damaged by wild pigs and nonnative vegetation, spokeswoman Carol Spears told The Times.

Santa Cruz, 22 miles off the Ventura County coast, is the largest of the Channel Islands, measuring 23.5 miles long and 7.5 miles wide at its center. It is considered the most roughhewn and topographically diverse of the northern islands, with a 2,470-foot volcanic peak, jagged canyons, rich pine forests and majestic coves with more than 100 sea caves.

The Nature Conservancy owns about 90%, or 57,000 acres, of the 63,000-acre island. It bought the land from a Los Angeles doctor in 1978 for $2.5 million. Negotiations to turn over this portion to the national park have been taking place since early 1998. Terms have not been finalized, but officials on both sides say the land transfer could be completed within a few weeks.

The Park Service will assume operation of Prisoner’s Harbor on the island’s eastern side, which includes a pier that has been closed due to disrepair. Park officials plan to rebuild the pier, which will serve as a point of free public access to the expanded parkland.

We support the Park Service’s goal of restoring the natural order to these incomparable islands and we appreciate the difficulty of pursuing it while allowing maximum access to the park’s ultimate owners: the taxpaying public. Human beings are one nonnative species that needs continued access to the islands--for study, for pleasure and for inspiration.

Thanks to the Nature Conservancy for adding another 8,000 acres to this unique and wonderful national park.