Audio segments from Trees Radio Hour! Roundtable Discussion with Friends of Yosemite Valley April, 2004 A roundtable discussion among the hosts of the show regarding the recent successes of Friends of Yosemite Valley in challenging the extensive commercialization and urbanization of Yosemite National Park, including a $441 million long-term plan that allocates 90% of funds towards Park development projects. Significant environmental impacts resulting from the active and proposed projects are discussed.

FoYV's mission is to protect and restore the wildness and natural systems of Yosemite through advocacy, education, and action and to further sustainable and equitable interaction with Yosemite's natural environment.

Since 1997, FoYV has led the struggle against harmful new development plans in the Valley. Through legal action, grassroots organizing, and public and press outreach, FoYV is determined to put an end to the surge of development in the National Park. FoYV also addresses development issues outside of the Valley's boundaries that affect the natural wonders of Yosemite.


FOYV Update

	Yosemite Valley in the winter time. Photo: Friends of Yosemite Valley Archive

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Friends of Yosemite Valley's claims that the National Park Service's Management Plan for Yosemite's Merced River is not protective. The October 2003 opinion ruled that the plan violates the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act by "insufficiently addressing user capacities and improperly setting river area boundaries within El Portal." The court did not overturn the District Court's decision on two other claims. (read more)

Defending Public Lands: New Era of Yosemite Protection
December 18, 2009
On September 29, Friends of Yosemite Valley and the National Park Service (NPS) jointly announced a court-approved Settlement Agreement ending 10 years of litigation. This milestone consolidates our Ninth Circuit court victory of 2008 and opens the door for a new generation of protection for Yosemite's Merced River and valley. Under the terms of the Settlement the multi-million-dollar development-minded Yosemite Valley Plan is now rescinded. Follow-on plans to redevelop two Valley hotels are gone too, along with schemes for new parking, roads, and much more. Yosemite today appears to be at a truly new beginning. (read more)


Friends of Yosemite Valley
December 10, 2007
In Yosemite, our efforts continue to reign in a well-funded new generation of commercial development, and to win a long-overdue legal plan to protect the Merced Wild and Scenic River. We have been focused on protecting the Merced while trying to get at what is really wrong here - commercialism and exploitation of a fragile and limited place. Those following our work know that we have labored in the shadow of a well-funded, oncoming development push for nearly ten years. Some damaging projects have been allowed, and many others were halted by our legal efforts. (read more)


In Yosemite: Green Means Dollars Not Sense
April 24, 2007
Because there is overwhelming desire for the preservation of Yosemite National Park, Californians and all Americans should be aware that their most beloved park is immediately facing a damaging construction boom. Sadly, the press has misrepresented this Yosemite Valley Plan (YVP) as a long-awaited plan to "restore" Yosemite. Government PR aside, the plan itself says just the opposite. Members of the local grassroots group Friends of Yosemite Valley (Friends) are familiar with park documents, regularly monitor park projects, and devote most of their public outreach efforts to countering the "green" spin of the National Park Service. Friends have also spent much of the past decade holding the federal government accountable to the law--holding the line against further commercialization of Yosemite. (read more)


Federal Court Halts Construction in Yosemite!
November 15, 2006
As we go to press: A federal court has halted several new construction and ground-disturbing projects affecting Yosemite National Park's Merced River. In July the same court ruled that the latest version of a plan for the river was invalid. These rulings come two years after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Park to prepare a "new or revised" plan for the Merced. (read more)


Friends of Yosemite Valley
September 20, 2005

	Previously undisterbed oak woodland along the Merced River in which Yosemite National Park is bulldozing a new 27-building dormitory complex. Photo: courtesy Friends of Yosemite Valley archive

More pizza parlors, drink stands, ice cream shops, dead bears, logging of black oaks park-wide? Rocks potentially falling on "low-level" employees as they sleep in their new 27-building dormitory complex (now being built by the National Park Service in a previously intact oak woodland and active rockfall zone)? Is this a picture of preservation of a National Treasure? Since 1997, Friends of Yosemite Valley has been working to halt the advance of urbanization and the loss of precious natural and cultural values, as well as the loss of a visitor experience based on those values that will be affordable to average families. (read more)


Friends of Yosemite Valley
December 8, 2004
Friends of Yosemite Valley's (FoYV) struggle to keep Yosemite's natural and cultural values protected from yet more development and to protect access for campers and the average family continues. For the last seven years FoYV efforts have, for the most part, kept the National Park Service (NPS) push for more and unnecessary development and commercialization at bay. FoYV's litigation resulted in NPS being ordered to revise Yosemite's Merced River Plan to be more protective, along with numerous injunctions on development plans. (read more)


Yosemite: First Take Care OF What We Have! Friends of Yosemite Valley Litigation Halts Yosemite Development Projects
September 6, 2004
The Friends of Yosemite Valley (FoYV) has been working since 1997 to keep Yosemite National Park (YNP) from more commercialization, development, pavement, and upscaling that would deny equitable access. If not reversed, this trend would shut out average-income families and move the visitors even more towards a consumer-based experience, rather than a connected natural experience. (read more)


Victory in Yosemite for Merced River
For almost a decade, Friends of Yosemite Valley and Mariposans for Environmentally Responsible Growth have defended the public's interests [in Yosemite National Park] against repeated assaults by the National Park Service. The courts have confirmed and reaffirmed the correctness of their position. With the decision handed down by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on March 27, 2008 there can be no lingering doubt who was right and who was wrong. (read more)



Contact Information

Email: foyv.org@gmail.com
Web Site: www.yosemitevalley.org
PO Box 702 Yosemite, CA 95389