Shifting Perspectives at Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge

If I told you it was beautiful upon first sight, I’d be lying. The landscape is a flat patchwork of open water, barren soil, and dense tule marshes ringed by industrial development. But if I told you it was unique, there isn’t a doubt in my mind you’d agree. Exiting the highway just east of San Jose, you meander from traffic clogged thoroughfares to the neighborhood streets of the incorporated town of Alviso where houses are built on stilts and one street corner has been designated the community sandbagging lot, a sure sign there must be water somewhere. Finally, you turn onto a poorly paved road that takes off across the scrub land as if intending to lead you on a wild goose chase. But just at the edge of the open expanse of the South Bay you come to it – Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge, the nation’s first federally protected urban refuge for wetland plants and animals.

The wooden headquarters building has the feel of a well fortified tree house with its massive dark beams and narrow spiraling staircase leading up level by shrinking level to a tiny lookout at the very top with windows on three sides. From this vantage point, you can see the refuge, surrounding urban landscape and indeed the entire Bay Area stretched out before you. Coming and going across the sky are dozens of birds in all shapes and sizes. More flocks are scattered across the salty ground and in the large shallow pools. Their mere presence invites you down from the tower to come out and take a closer look.

This habitat has been drastically altered by human beings for over a century through building levees for flood control and the conversion of marshland into salt ponds used to harvest the culinary staple. The newly restored one hundred acre LaRiviere Marsh behind the visitor center shows the next phase of human impact on the landscape here. A wooden boardwalk snakes from the visitor center out into the wetland where sinuous creeks trace through the undulating mounds of silt and picklweed. Northern shovelers float peacefully among the reeds while sandpipers flit across the muddy banks chasing insects. This land was regraded to mimic the original topography and the levee was breached to reintroduce tidal flows from the bay. All that remains to be done now is observe and learn as the bay does its work.

Out beyond this quaint habitat lie miles of austere salt ponds waiting their turn for rebirth. Berms of dredged earth between the ponds allow safe passage across the divided landscape. Adding to the surreality of the whole scene is the fact that an Amtrak line passes right through the middle of the refuge. Because of the flat topography, you don’t even become aware of this fact until you happen upon the tracks or see a train jetting by in the distance. This refuge is in the early stages of undergoing a 16,000 acre restoration, one of the largest and most ambitious to ever be undertaken. A delicate balancing act is required during this process, because while the historic marshes were beneficial for certain species, the current “unnatural” landscape is a boon to others. Natural shallow open water harbors used to exist elsewhere in the bay area to provide a refuge for shorebirds during coastal storms, but now only the salt ponds provide this type of habitat. Some ponds need to remain filled with water in order to ensure that this much needed safe haven continues to exist.

Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge challenges the idea of what is beautiful, natural and best for all species. Is a natural place more or less beautiful because it exists in tandem with an urban environment? If an artificially created landscape provides a safe port in the storm for wildlife, does that now make it natural? If the train bisecting the refuge allows people to reduce their carbon footprint by using public transport, is it indirectly best for the refuge to keep it running? Perhaps what is most unique about this place is its ability to challenge our perceptions, help us clarify what we value, and guide how we go forward from a century of human-centered progress into an era of development in partnership with the natural world.