San Francisco Chronicle - Bay Area backcountry preserved

A choice chunk of Northern California's backcountry is getting the federal attention it needs with President Obama's decision to give enhanced protections for 331,000 acres across five near-Bay Area counties.

The White House move caps a years-long drive by local groups to win more oversight and management along a 100-mile stretch of federal wilderness holdings. The presidential action focuses on a rolling landscape marked by streams, meadows and mountains along an inner slice of the Coast Range from 7,000-foot-high Snow Mountain in Lake County to hillsides ringing Lake Berryessa in Napa County.

The change sidesteps Congress, where Republicans had blocked the upgrade. Obama is tapping his executive powers to confer monument status on the federal lands, which will be used to mesh management policies now spread across three agencies. No private land is involved, and public access for hunting, fishing and hiking won't be changed, backers say.

Though the land lies between the Bay Area and Sacramento, it's remarkably wild and unvisited. Boosters such as Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, who lured Interior Secretary Sally Jewel on an inspection hike last winter, hope the new status will attract visitors to explore an area that offers bald eagles, bears and tule elk roaming hillsides dotted with oak trees.

The protected area, known as the Snow Mountain Berryessa National Monument, was one of three anointed by the president. The others include a site where prehistoric mammoth remains are located in Texas and a wide area in Nevada known for rock art dating back 4,000 years. The Antiquities Act of 1906 has allowed a string of presidents to add extra protections to unique natural areas. Obama has tapped this power 19 times, often when Congress has balked at adding more protected areas.