Rewilding the Golf Course

Writing in the New York Times, Cara Buckley describes the transformation of a former golf course in Northern California, which is being transformed into a public green space known as San Geronimo Commons. The San Geronimo Golf Course shut down in 2018, leaving the land to ‘rewild’ and return to nature without landscaping or pesticides.

As Buckley explains, “A small number of shuttered golf courses around the country have been bought by land trusts, municipalities and nonprofit groups and transformed into nature preserves, parks and wetlands. Among them are sites in Detroit, Pennsylvania, Colorado, the Finger Lakes of upstate New York, and at least four in California.”

The restoration of a golf course takes more than just leaving it alone. At San Geronimo, “Floodplains will be reconnected, and a fish barrier has been removed, allowing access to more robust migratory and breeding grounds for endangered coho salmon and threatened steelhead trout. Trails are planned that would skirt sensitive habitat, making the land a publicly accessible ecological life raft, starkly different from its time as a golf course.”