Parks as (Potential) Wilderness
This chapter recounts the application of wilderness ideals to the Point Reyes landscape in the 1970s, which further defined the landscape and exacerbated the tension between preservation and use at the Seashore. The first is an August 1976 resolution identifying Point Reyes as a possible location for reintroduction of tule elk. It was then followed by the designation of a wilderness area across roughly one-third of the peninsula. These two pieces of legislation emphasizing the wild characteristics of Point Reyes were soon followed by a third congressional act, in 1978, creating a leasing mechanism for the working ranches to continue operating past the original terms of their reservations of use. Together, these three laws framed PRNS as a landscape where Congress had given deliberate sanction to both its wilder aspects and the continuity of agriculture.