Parks

Past some of the greenest hills, poorest villages and roughest roads in Africa, a machete-wielding ranger hacks his way deep into the jungle until a canopy of giant ferns and bamboo eclipses the sun. Antelopes, elephants and hippos once thrived here in Africa's oldest national park. Decades of poaching have left little more than a few families of mountain gorillas. And civil war rages just miles away, the latest twist in a conflict that has ensnared eastern Congo for 12 years.

The 9-acre waterfront plot at the northwest edge of downtown Seattle was an oil depot for much of the last century; for years it was considered a fuel-soaked toxic waste site. After a decade-long cleanup, it caught the eye of developers, who floated proposals for apartment buildings there in the 1990s.

The history of preserving open space in the Los Angeles Basin, critics long have said, has been characterized by a lack of vision, as asphalt and concrete were given free run of the landscape. Vision has won out, however, at what may be the single best vantage point in the metropolitan area, where earthmovers and workmen are laboring to create Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook State Park.

Ending a five-year legal skirmish that pitted Huntington Beach against its police union, city officials announced Tuesday that the union and other agencies would help pay to decontaminate a portion of Huntington Beach Central Park used for a quarter-century as a firing range. The Huntington Beach Police Officers Assn.'

On any sunny day, thousands flock to Manhattan's Bryant Park, lured by the shaded flower beds, the carousel, the free wireless Internet and the hundreds of comfortable cafe chairs all painted the same soothing shade of ivy green. Not even the cold can keep them away. Since October, 148,000 people have visited the seven-acre city park to skate -- for free -- on what many consider New York's finest outdoor public ice rink. To some, Bryant Park is a vibrant town square.

THE campground at Leo Carrillo State Park is a scenic retreat where a family can hike the Santa Monica Mountains, explore tide pools or simply hang out around the fire pit. It's also just a quick drive to a venti-sized caffe latte: We call it "Starbucks camping." And it's perfect for folks whose idea of "roughing it" includes access to flush toilets and a well-inflated air mattress.

Surrounded on all sides by urban sprawl, the Verdugo Mountains in the northeast corner of Los Angeles are one of the last remnants of wilderness in that section of the city, where coyotes, raccoons and lizards still live in dense brush and chaparral. For years, developers have thought of the Verdugos as ripe for new homes.

Orange County's Great Park, envisioned as a dramatic landscape of man-made lakes, streams and a rugged canyon in the middle of suburbia, will cost more than $1 billion to create. The new estimate, revealed during a park board study session last week, reflects costs of the park's updated design. The original estimate was far less than $1 billion. The facility, which will be built on the former El Toro Marine Base, would be one of the largest urban parks in the nation.

Moved by health concerns, the Los Angeles City Council took the first step Friday toward a total ban on smoking in most city parks but exempted golf courses after it was warned that the city might lose money from greens fees. The council asked the city attorney to draft an ordinance expanding on a 2004 law banning smoking on city beaches and a 2002 law prohibiting smoking within 25 feet of playgrounds, ball fields and picnic areas in parks.