Report Back of Defend Knowland Park! Kickoff Action
Report Back of Defend Knowland Park! Kickoff Action
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKG_ugBIEfI&edit=vd
Alert! - As soon as April 16th, the Zoological Society can section off the combined 77 acre “California Trail” and mitigation sites, from public access, behind an 8-foot chain linked barbed wire fence
Last Friday, a crowd of 50 people assembled in the Oakland highlands to inaugurate a direct action campaign against the East Bay Zoological Society's “California Trail” project that would expand the Oakland Zoo above the ridgeline into the undeveloped 400- acre region known as Huchiun to Ohlone people, commonly referred to as Knowland Park. The “California Trail” project outlines a 56-acre public land grab for private development. This open space land will be removed from public access and transformed into a “conservation” theme park under the management of the East Bay Zoological Society (EBZS), a private nonprofit contracted with the City of Oakland to manage the Oakland Zoo. Financial donors include the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and the Clorox Company Foundation (who will be sponsoring a planned campground within the site to be named the “Clorox Outdoor Over-night Experience”). The "California Trail" exhibit's website has a virtual tour that depicts Zoo visitors as upper-middle class white people confirms that the plans are neo-colonial and gentrifying. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDbwRVkEYDY)
During the demonstration, land defenders and community members displayed banners such as “Commons Not Cages”, “Keep it Wild,” and "Respect Existence or Expect Resistance - People's Park of Huchiun." A representative of the Ohlone Tribe, Defend Knowland Park!, and Friends of Knowland Park, were interviewed by 10 o’clock news about the colonial development proposal and the biodiversity that will be devastated if community members don't halt the Oakland Zoo expansion.
We walked through meadows buzzing with insects, budding with ribbons of wildflowers, and native grasslands with tectonic-shaped brackish rocky outcroppings. On the proposed development site there are stands of Oak woodland, teeming with songs of California thrashers, dense clusters of Maritime Chaparral and Coastal Scrub Brush, habitat for the threatened Alameda Whipsnake, and later across the ridge lines cascading down toward the metropolis emerging from the horizon.
After arriving at the development site to identify key threatened habitat, we spoke about the layout of the expansion plan which would level, pave, and fence off 77-acres. The "California Trail" construction plan consists of fifty structures including roadways, "native" animal exhibits, an aerial gondola, an interpretive center, an overnight campground, a gift shop, concession stands, an office complex, and a high-end restaurant.
We stood in the central grove of sixty Coastal Live Oaks, all slated to be removed for development, and then approached an enormous old-growth Oak with three sprawling lichen-encrusted trunks. This is the "Mother Tree" of the site which hosts a fungal network that transports carbon, water, and nutrients among surrounding Oaks. A speaker motioned toward a low-lying edible plant that European settlers enlisted as “Miner’s Lettuce” and explained that the group should refrain from harvesting to limit impact. Ohlone tribal member Anthony responded to this point by emphasizing how the term “Miner’s Lettuce” relates to Ohlone conquest and slaughter by colonial settlers in 1849 who were employed as miners in the region during the Gold Rush. Anthony then sang a social Ohlone song to recognize his ancestors and honor the land beneath us, while the group listened intently. When he finished, we were all silent.
Later, we converged with the Brass Liberation Orchestra, journeying down trampled slopes toward the adjacent Oakland Zoo. We marched through cement-sealed prairies, to booming ensemble-style music, until we reached an auditorium. The group rallied directly outside a movie screeing, while unfurling a 30 foot “Defend Knowland Park" banner and had a speak out which transitioned into chanting and outreach to Zoo tourists.
PROTECT THE WILD!
DISMANTLE NEO-COLONIALISM!
DEFEND KNOWLAND PARK! - HUCHIUN TERRITORY OF THE OHLONE TRIBE
WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/DEFENDKNOWLANDPARK
CONTACT US : DEFENDKNOWLANDPARK@RISEUP.NET
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