Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area
The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is a United States national recreation area containing many individual parks and open space preserves, located primarily in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California. The SMMNRA is in the greater Los Angeles region, with two thirds of the parklands in northwest Los Angeles County, and the remaining third, including a Simi Hills extension, in southeastern Ventura County. Overall administration is by the National Park Service, coordinating with state, county, municipal, and university agencies. The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area preserves one of the best examples of a Mediterranean climate ecosystem in the world. It also protects one of the highest densities of archaeological resources in any mountain range in the world. In size the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is the largest urban national park in the United States and the largest urban national park in the world. The Woolsey Fire in November 2018 burned 83% of all National Park Service land in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Geography The Santa Monica Mountains NRA contains in the Santa Monica Mountains of the Transverse Ranges between the Pacific Ocean and inland valleys. Its southeastern slopes are part of the headwaters of the Los Angeles River. The California State Park system and other public agencies own , the National Park Service controls , and the rest of the SMMNRA lands are in local agencies parks, university study reserves, and private property conservation easements. Park history The movement to preserve the Santa Monica Mountains has a long tradition which is frequently overlooked by historians who often focus exclusively on the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s which culminated with the establishment of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in 1978. Griffith Park The first area in the Santa Monica Mountains set aside for public use was Griffith Park which was donated to the city of Los Angeles by Griffith J. Griffith in 1896. National Forest During the first decade of the twentieth century, Frederick H. Rindge made several attempts to create a forest reserve in the Santa Monica Mountains. These reserves were precursors to national forests. In 1902 California's State Mining Bureau examined the area being considered for the establishment of a forest reserve. The resulting report was sent to Washington where the proposal for a reserve was denied. In 1907 an application was submitted to the Secretary of the Interior requesting that at least in the mountains be designated a forest reserve. This time state mineralogist Lewis E. Aubury opposed the venture. He wrote the L.A. Time newspaper stating, "I believe that the lands embraced in the Malibu and Santa Monica districts should not be included in a forest reserve…I shall at once take the matter up with Gifford Pinchot, forester, Washington, D.C., and endeavor to ascertain his views on the subject, and further protest against the creation of this proposed reserve". Days later the U. S. Forest Service advised Aubury that it was highly improbable that a