A Documentary from KRCB Public Television
Produced, Directed and Written by Nancy Kelly

From the 1950s through the 1970s, plans to develop West Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino counties included four-lane freeways, marinas, a racetrack, and suburban housing developments for hundreds of thousands of people in the Marin Headlands and Limantour Beach. Instead, as a result of a grassroots-driven revolution in land ethics, residents of and visitors to the San Francisco Bay Area enjoy the Golden Gate Recreation Area and Point Reyes National Seashore, parks that are a model for America and the world.

Moments in Time is a documentary whose major theme is about the need in conservation for constant diligence, emphasizing that in conservation, victories are temporary but its losses are permanent. This series will inspire other urban residents across America and the world in their efforts to improve life in and around cities. In a time when conservation victories are constantly under attack, the story of the preservation of these lands will remind viewers that great things are possible.

In Moments in Time we'll meet the bold, dauntless, forward-thinking conservationists who assembled a series of land acquisitions into an increasingly large block of parkland and, in doing so, thwarted local, state and federal government plans to turn the Northern California coastline into a Los Angeles-style suburb. Between the two most dramatic stories of the creation of the GGNRA are the defeat of the Marincello subdivision in the Marin Headlands and William Kent’s effort to save the redwoods in what we know as the Muir Woods National Monument. The result of the tireless work of many citizens is that in the midst of San Francisco, one of the world’s great cities are beaches, mountains, forests, islands and wildlife. We will emphasize the importance of citizen action in the preservation of cultural and natural heritage.

Moments in Time will re-live the creation of the Point Reyes National Seashore, in which recreation and preservation of agriculture have been woven together into the preservation of a unique, 80-mile long stretch of undeveloped coastline. The original plan for Point Reyes envisioned a "Jones Beach on the Pacific"- a cliff- top parkway would have passed within yards of a seal rookery, Limantour Estero would have been engineered for motor boating. Even dune buggies were provided for. Before any of these plans could be implemented, the public made it clear that it wanted Point Reyes treated as wilderness. Although it was a controversial idea in the beginning, many farms and ranches were made part of the park, enabling family-based agriculture to continue in an urban area. Also we will highlight the history and the role of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust in keeping land from sprawled development and the many ways in which agriculture, recreation and conservation dovetailed into a model of sustainable agriculture.

Photography ©Art Rogers/Point Reyes, California