The National Park Service announced earlier this month that it has appointed a new superintendent for the Point Reyes National Seashore.

Craig Kenkel is superintendent of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park near Cleveland. He has held several posts in the Bay Area during his 37-year park service career.

Craig Kenkel has been named new superintendent of Point Reyes National Seashore. (National Park Service; contributed) 

Kenkel will start his new job in January. He will also oversee the management of 15,000 acres of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in Marin north of Bolinas-Fairfax Road.

Kenkel held several jobs for the GGNRA between 2005 and 2017, including acting superintendent in 2017. Before taking the Cuyahoga Valley National Park post in 2014, he was superintendent of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park from 2010-2014 and a national park historical architect in San Francisco from 1989-1992.

“I first experienced Point Reyes early in my career, and instantly connected with its dramatic wildness, ruralness and small communities,” Kenkel said. “When I was a San Francisco resident, the park was often my respite from city life. I’m both excited and honored to join the incredible team of employees and partners who care for Point Reyes and serve all who live in and visit the park.”

The 71,000-acre national seashore might be near the implementation of a controversial management plan. The plan would allow park officials to shoot some tule elk to prevent conflicts with private ranching operations in the park. It would also extend private ranching leases from five-year to 20-year terms.

The 33,000-acre Cuyahoga Valley National Park has some similarities to Point Reyes. Both lease land to private agricultural operations, are near heavily urbanized areas and are visited by about 2.2 million people each year.

In 1999, Cuyahoga Valley National Park and a nonprofit organization agreed to rehabilitate 14 farmsteads that had existed in the park. Ten farms are being leased through a competitive process and grow crops, flowers and livestock. Point Reyes National Seashore leases land to 24 working dairy and cattle ranches.

“That’s really at the crux of the future management of Point Reyes and that is combining the need to preserve and protect cultural resources along with the rich natural resources that we find at Point Reyes,” said Nona Dennis, a board member with the Marin Conservation League environmental group. “(Kenkel) comes highly respected from National Park Service employees and brings this pretty unique experience of balancing different resources to Point Reyes.”

Donna Faure, executive director of the seashore’s nonprofit partner, the Point Reyes National Seashore Association, said Kenkel’s experience working with the agricultural sector will be a benefit to Point Reyes. In speaking with her counterpart at the Conservancy of Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Faure said Kenkel has built strong partnerships and has experience working to promote environmental education as well as equity, inclusion and diversity in the park.

The new management plan is expected to create new opportunities to build new trails within the park and other amenities, Faure said.

“I think his experience in the Bay Area means that he will be up to speed really quickly,” Faure said. “What I’ve read is how much he’s loved Point Reyes, as we all do. I’m just excited to have a permanent superintendent. There’s been a lot of transition and I think it’s going to be really good for the park and our partnership.”

Point Reyes’ proposed management plan faced strong opposition and could become the target of litigation by environmental groups. The Mill Valley-based Resource Renewal Institute was among the groups that advocated for the seashore to remove private ranching altogether in favor of giving the park’s nearly 750 tule elk more room to roam.

“The appointment of this superintendent — the fourth in as many years — suggests that, despite overwhelming public support for phasing out ranching and preserving native wildlife, protecting the climate and restoring public access to 28,000 acres of parklands, the conversion of our national seashore to commercial ranching was a foregone conclusion,” said Deborah Moskowitz, the institute’s executive director. “It’s hard to believe that the government paid two dozen ranchers tens of millions of dollars for their land so that this national park could remain their own private Idaho. But the ranchers and their allies have been setting the priorities at Point Reyes for decades.”

Kenkel also joins the park as it works to recover from the Woodward fire, which burned nearly 5,000 acres of wilderness earlier this year and was the worst fire since the Mount Vision fire in 1995, which burned 12,300 acres.

Kenkel will replace the seashore’s 10-year superintendent Cicely Muldoon, who in October became the second woman appointed superintendent at Yosemite National Park.

“I’ve known him for years, and he is one of the best in the business,” Muldoon said of Kenkel. “He has deep experience in managing complex park issues, knows and loves the Bay Area and Point Reyes well, and brings intellect, empathy and great sense of humor to everything. I know the staff and the community will really enjoy working with him.”