David Van Cleve has many ties to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and Anza-Borrego Foundation. In the 1980s, he was an environmental scientist in the San Diego regional office, where he collaborated with park staff on many significant natural resource projects. In 1989, he was selected to serve as the superintendent of the state park. In 1994, his responsibilities were expanded to include management of six other state parks (Mt. San Jacinto, Cuyamaca Rancho, Palomar Mountain, Salton Sea, Picacho, and Indio Hills) in addition to Anza-Borrego. After retiring from state service, he worked for The Nature Conservancy as Ecoregional Director for the South Coast Ecoregion and added over 1,000 acres to the Park. Each month, Dave will fill in some important issues in the history Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which often dove-tail with the history of ABF. We are grateful for his wealth of knowledge of the Park and willingness to share with us!

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) is an agency of the larger, global organization—the United Nations (U.N.). UNESCO attempts “to build peace and security through global cooperation in education, science, culture, and communications, working to preserve heritage, foster sustainable development, and promote human rights and knowledge sharing.”

One of the significant ways UNESCO translates these goals into reality is through its World Heritage site program. Over 1,000 sites worldwide have been so designated for their importance to all humanity and for the need to protect them for current and future generations. In short, they are the most incredible natural and cultural sites on the planet. Is Anza-Borrego one of the world’s top 1000?

About ten years ago, I shepherded an attempt to have Anza-Borrego Desert State Park added to that list. Some called it tilting at windmills; I called it “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” It was worth a try.

Anza-Borrego Foundation (ABF) had, at the time, an incredible donor —the late Dr. George Sardina. Dr. Sardina was a fierce advocate of getting the Park on that list. He was willing to donate money to ABF to make that attempt.

As I began researching the process for nominating a site, it became clear that the bar for admittance to this exclusive club was indeed high. The only two existing sites in California at the time were Yosemite National Park and the state and national parks that preserve coast redwoods. What chance could Anza-Borrego, little known in the state, much less on a national or global scale, have of getting listed?

Although Anza-Borrego is not famous, it has been recognized for its attributes, including its role in conserving important natural and cultural resources and preserving the incredible paleontological resources of the Pliocene and Pleistocene Epochs. UNESCO has already recognized the Park as a unit of its Biosphere Reserve Program. The National Park Service has named Anza-Borrego a national natural landmark. National Geographic has called it California’s finest state park. Conde-Nast named it one of the world’s five greatest “surprise” travel destinations (I guess this supports the notion that it does not have a global reputation). The scientific community knows this is a special place.

The process for getting listed turns out to be long, difficult, and highly political. Each nation that is a member of the U.N. has the ability to nominate a site. In the United States, the gatekeeper for project nominations is the National Park Service (NPS), which has a small staff in Washington, D.C., assigned to manage the program for this country.

As I began discussing the project nomination process with NPS staff, it became clear that a site would not be successful solely because it was an incredible natural or cultural site. Superlatives were necessary—the world’s tallest trees, the world’s finest example of indigenous people building mounds, examples of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, the world’s greatest architect.

How could Anza-Borrego compete? The Park has a plethora of important resources—bighorn sheep, the Juan Bautista de Anza trail, the role of the Colorado River, and thousands of rock circles, to name a few. We formed a group of highly knowledgeable staff and park friends to brainstorm this issue. The results were the best example of the Plio-Pleistocene Epochs in the world, including a five-kilometer vertical paleontological record, and the only sea-floor spreading rift valley in the western hemisphere. Notably, the rift valley in the eastern hemisphere, in East Africa, is an existing World Heritage site.

With Dr. Sardina’s assistance, I flew to D.C. to meet with NPS staff. They made it clear that our project would have a better chance if we could partner with federally protected areas—Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks, and the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument. These are the same units that make up the Colorado and Mojave Desert Biosphere Reserve. In speaking with the superintendents of these three units, as well as the Mojave National Preserve, it was clear they would not receive much support from the National Park Service.

Politically, the road was challenging as well. The United States had not been paying its UNESCO dues for several years. The NPS staff did not believe the member nations would look too favorably on a U.S. project nomination for that reason. Our chances faded.

I made one last attempt. The World Heritage Conference would meet that year in Istanbul, Turkey, to consider nominations. I made the case to the NPS staff that I would like to attend the conference to better understand the process and improve our nomination. The response was that they only received a few tickets to attend, and that U.S. nominations had been submitted long before Anza-Borrego. I was turned down.

That summer, Istanbul was the site of an attempted coup to overturn the Turkish Government. The coup coincided with the conference. I emailed the NPS staff to make sure they were okay. They responded that the previous night, Turkish jet fighters were flying through Istanbul BELOW the tops of the buildings. The sonic booms shattered the windows of their hotel room.

I was relieved NOT to be at the Conference.

The good news is that Anza-Borrego is a member of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, which shares many of the World Heritage program’s goals.