Top Interior official visits Point Reyes

For two days last week, a senior official in the United States Department of the Interior quietly convened a series of closed-door meetings at the headquarters of the Point Reyes National Seashore.

Karen Budd-Falen—the department’s associate deputy secretary, the third highest-ranking position—serves in an administration that has moved to transform how public lands across the country are used and managed, often minimizing conservation in favor of maximizing economic returns.

Her visit had long been anticipated by local ranching advocates, some of whom hoped it might herald changes to the legal settlement that evicted all but two ranches from the seashore.

Instead, she came not to trumpet news, but to listen.

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