Treehuggers International Tommy Hough

Orange County is still looking at building a long sought-after toll road through the backcounty of San Onofre State Beach in the San Mateo Creek watershed, despite the state and federal government repeatedly saying no.

For two years, photographer Amy Gulick trekked among bears and bald eagles, and across forests and salmon-packed streams to document Alaska's Tongass National Forest in its natural, primeval state, for her book Salmon In the Trees. The most complete portion of remaining west coast temperate rainforest, the Tongass is the largest National Forest in the U.S., and the only National Forest to have been "excused" from Roadless Rule regulations.

If passed, the California Desert Protection Act will protect over one million acres of the Mojave Desert's last wild areas, with the creation of two new National Monuments: the Mojave Trails National Monument on former railroad lands adjoining historic U.S. Rt. 66, and the Sand to Snow National Monument, which would include areas from the desert floor of the Coachella Valley to the high country of the San Bernardino Mountains.

When the state of California set aside Yosemite Valley for protection as a park in 1864, it marked the beginning of California's state park system, and the beginning of the idea of preserving a landscape and an environment as a wholly protected, public place. Eventually, the California State Park system became the model upon which the National Park Service would be built. Filmmakers David Vassar and Sally Kaplan talked with Tommy about California Forever, their new, two-part PBS special on the history and current challenges of California's state parks.