Membership on an elite United Nations roster of worldwide scenic and cultural attractions might be fine for Yosemite and the Statue of Liberty, but San Luis Obispo County this week turned down that possibility for the Carrizo Plain National Monument, a remote 250,000-acre swath of grasslands at its eastern end.
As a result, with an April 1 deadline looming, the Wilderness Society announced it would abandon its effort to nominate the sprawling monument as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage site. The U.N. agency does not plan to consider the next round of nominations until 2020, said Geary Hund, the society official who was leading the effort.
"I'm disappointed," Hund said Friday. "I've talked to World Heritage site managers across the U.S. and none of them could think of any drawbacks. What a site gets is recognition and prestige, and those that aren't well-known stand to get increased agency attention and the possibility of attracting more money through grants."
The 3-2 vote by the county's Board of Supervisors came a week after Taft, a small Kern County oil town, also voted to withhold support for the idea. Opposition by local governments almost inevitably dooms such proposals, which must jump numerous hurdles before being approved by the U.S. Interior Department and then by UNESCO.
Supporters of the designation say it brings honor and, in many cases, tourists to the 830 spots worldwide that are now on the list. Opponents warned of a cascade of U.N. rules that could affect not just the monument but also areas surrounding it.
Alberta Lewis, a member of a pioneering Carrizo Plain ranch family, told county supervisors at a Tuesday hearing: "I can see no intelligent reason to tie up any of America with the United Nations. Please, supervisors, don't give away any more of our country."
But Supervisor James Patterson described the designation as "a Nobel Prize" for natural wonders.
In an interview Friday, he said the plan was derailed by "an almost-hysteria about the U.N. coming to San Luis Obispo County. Some people couldn't be persuaded that the U.N. wouldn't have a controlling interest in the monument."
Other supervisors said there wasn't enough time to fully study the idea.
