Highlights of Year 2012
During 2012, Friends of Griffith Park made extraordinary headway in our mission to conserve and preserve Griffith Park:
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Providing financial support for initiatives unique to Griffith Park. Our Fern Dell revitalization work continued with the completion of Phase 1, Cultural Landscape Assessment. Fern Dell was named on the Cultural Landscape Foundation's "Landslide 2012" list of significant, but threatened, parks, gardens and civic spaces worth preserving, as FoGP was singled out for the Fern Dell preservation effort. Our assistance grant from the National Park Service was renewed regarding our role to enhance the Juan Bautista de Anza Trail segment which runs along Crystal Springs Picnicking facility and beyond. We contributed funding to the Griffith Park Natural History Survey, placing importance on wildlife corridor studies, especially in light of Griffith Park's mountain lion, P-22, which was found as a result of this same study.
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Serving as Griffith Park's most energetic advocate. We testified at public meetings on policy, commented and advised on environmental and recreational issues, raised consciousness about historic preservation, lobbied to increase park funding, and opposed inappropriate developments such as the plan to introduce commercial advertising into city parks. We kept our members and the public informed through our publications and web site and promoted practices that reinforce Colonel Griffith's vision of the Park as a free and natural refuge from urban pressure.
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Promoting education as a key to sustaining Griffith Park. We underwrote and co-led numerous hikes that brought hundreds of urban kids to the Park and taught them about its natural wonders. We continued our free Griffith Park Lecture Series at the Los Feliz Branch Library featuring authors and academics speaking on the Park's human and natural history. We spoke before community groups on the Park's historic features and contributed books relating to the Park to local libraries. We launched a campaign to reduce the use of rodenticides for rodent control, toxic to our wildlife, pets, and children.
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Continued our service programs in Griffith Park. We delivered a successful schedule of Park clean ups, graffiti paint-outs, and other hands-on improvements.
Friends of Griffith Park has a passionate board and positive community partnerships, but we need your continued support to ensure that Griffith Park remains L.A.'s signature green and open space, place of free recreation, and linchpin in the survival of Southern California's native ecosystems. Please take a moment to become a member or renew your membership if you've previously supported us.
