East Bay Regional Park District & Outdoor Afro COVID19, Equitable Trail Usage, & Juneteenth

Photo of Tilden taken by Ava Castanha

The COVID19 pandemic has created a renewed interest in getting outdoors for many people, especially in the East Bay Regional Park District, which maintains park and trails stretching across the Alameda and Contra Costa counties. I was fortunate to talk to Joseph Mouzon, who is the COO of Outdoor Afro, a nationally recognized non-profit organization whose mission is to inspire and reconnect black people with nature, and Brian Holt, the Chief of the Planning, Trails and GIS Department at the East Bay Regional Park District. 

Brian gave some insight into the newfound interest in the parks: “We are seeing exponential increases both in our natural parklands and on our regional trails…. Using the available data, we have seen at least a 30% increase…” With the public utilizing the parks, the park rangers and workers must work in the field and continue to operate bathrooms and dump trash. These park rangers and workers are essential workers who are at risk going out to work every day. “With that comes a lot more demand for what is a shared resource, shared trials, shared spaces, and that results in potentially more user conflicts….” What creates user conflict on trails?

While not highly reported, there is often conflict amongst hikers, cyclists, and equestrians on trails. Hikers want to have a calm hiking experience and not be alarmed by a mountain bike, whereas mountain bikers are eager to use the trails themselves, and equestrians require quieter trails for the horses. This presents a challenge: How can we equitably create and manage trails in a way that keeps each group content? 

According to Brian, EBRPD has been behind on providing facilities for bikes and single track trails for bikers, as currently cyclists are primarily only allowed on fire roads. However, Brain explained that cycling is the fastest growing use of park lands, so the park district doesn’t want to exclude this rapidly growing group from the trails. The district strives to create new trails that are sensitive to the natural environment, but also have the user experience in mind-- and they realize the possibility of users creating their own trails if they don’t. Enforcement of trail usage is also difficult, given the huge area the parklands and trails cover. Joseph introduced me to some of the potential solutions to this conflict:
“One of the solutions we are thinking about is scheduling, maybe certain hours of Saturday are for equestrians, hours later in the day are for cyclists, and later in the day is for hikers. Or, one day during the week (Monday - Friday has traffic) -- if equestrians skew older, we can encourage them to do their horseback riding Monday - Friday, and maybe give cyclists more time on the weekend-- if that demographic skews younger.” He explained that with more data analysis the parks could more accurately meet everyone's needs. Brian says, “We have to all work together and get creative, identify solutions, put our biases aside, and respect each other and the parks and recognize that the parks belong to all of us. Everyone has a place in them so we need to find a way to accommodate that.” 

How can we create equitable parklands and trails? If we start looking at demographics, we can see a larger problem overall-- the lack of diversity in nature. Outdoor Afro is trying to engage black communities to connect with nature in order to lead the way for more inclusion in outdoor recreation. They work to amplify the contributions of black people in the outdoors and promote leadership so that black communities are represented in conservation and nature. 

When I asked Joseph if he’d like to highlight anything about Outdoor Afro and their initiatives, he brought to my attention an important date: Juneteenth. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and it became official in 1863, and yet two and a half years later, in 1865 on June 19th, was when Union soldiers came to Galveston Texas with the news that the enslaved were now free. Joseph explained, “Media has been misrepresenting what Juneteenth was-- they were calling it the end of slavery, and Outdoor Afro is taking a leadership role in trying to correct the narrative of what Juneteenth was: it was an injustice where a quarter of a million enslaved people were denied their freedom for two and a half years.” In honor of what happened, Outdoor Afro is launching an initiative to get 50,000 people outdoors to “remember the real meaning of Juneteenth and for two and a half hours to think about what it means to be free in America in nature.” I encourage you to read more into the history of this event and mark your calendars, as well as raise awareness about this initiative. And be sure to explore the beautiful parkland that is in Berkeley’s backyard!

You can find out more about Outdoor Afro and their work connecting black people to nature on their website, and check out the East Bay Regional Parks District’s annual Trails Challenge to discover new ways to get outside