Presidio photo exhibit shows 5 of world's crucial parks

Leopard in Serengeti National Park

A new photography exhibit in the Presidio of San Francisco takes visitors from the harsh, windswept stretches across the Tibetan Plateau in China to the wildlife-rich Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. It moves from the fascinating archaeological site that is Pompeii to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and on to a critical rain forest reserve in Brazil and Venezuela.

The show, "Crown Jewels: Five Great National Parks Around the World and the Challenges They Face," was opened Feb. 19 by the Presidio Trust. It sheds light on the problems and successes in a handful of notable parks, and looks at the effects of modernization on once-pristine land and water.

"Even as protected areas have increased in number and extent, biological diversity has decreased worldwide," said the show's curator and Presidio Trust historian emeritus Randolph Delehanty. "Humans directly affect about 83 percent of the Earth's land and all of its atmosphere and oceans."

Delehanty, who edited a "Crown Jewels" book to go with the exhibit, said the five international parks were selected to "show the variety of protected areas, natural and cultural, terrestrial and aquatic, old and recent, and the different kind of challenges they face."

The fragile environment of the Serengeti National Park, for example, known to have the greatest concentration of wildlife in the world, faces degradation by the tourist trade. It is also an archeologically critical area, and home to the indigenous Masai.

The Vesuvius National Park in Campagna, Italy, was selected to show not only its scientific and archaeological relevance but also the ways in which tourism and lack of preservation can compromise a historic site.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Queensland, Australia, is used to show how climate change and tourism are affecting the area. Delehanty also brings to light a more subtle change that's taking place, one where tourists visit an aquarium in Queensland and believe they have experienced the Reef. The sites in China and Brazil also present challenges for locals, agriculture and preservation.

The exhibit comes 20 years after the Presidio began its journey from an Army post to a new kind of national park site, and was faced with figuring out costs, revenue, stewardship, purpose and how to strike a balance between preservation and development.

Craig Middleton, executive director of the Presidio Trust, noted, "Like the five international parks showcased in this exhibit, we have faced pressing challenges at the Presidio: caring for native habitats and cultural resources, creating an inclusive and welcoming community, and establishing a financial foundation that would allow the park to thrive."

Middleton added, "While our work is far from complete, we hope that the collaborative approach forged at the Presidio offers a valuable case study of how champions from across sectors can come together to save a treasured place."

The free exhibit fills two rooms in a former barracks built between 1895 and 1897 during the Spanish-American War. On the wall of one of the rooms is the saying, "Parks and protected areas are now important not just for what they are, but also as a classroom for the planet."