The Oyster War ― The True Story of a Small Farm, Big Politics, and the Future of Wilderness in America

It all began simply enough. In 1976 the Point Reyes Wilderness Act was passed with broad support, giving more than 33,000 acres of forest, grassland and shoreline the highest possible environmental protection in America. Those lands were to include a rare marine sanctuary of stunning beauty, Drakes Estero, as potential wilderness.” Located in that estuary was a small, family-run oyster farm first established in the 1930s. The farm’s owners had sold their land to the federal government in 1972 in exchange for a 40-year special use permit to operate inside the National Park. But the farm was plagued with environmental problems, and its owners decided to sell out before their lease was up. Kevin Lunny, a local rancher, bought the oyster farm in 2005 and renamed it The Drakes Bay Oyster Company. When the National Park Service informed him that the lease would not be renewed past 2012 so that the area could be restored to its wilderness condition, Lunny vowed to fight that decision and keep the farm in business. Thus began a protracted battle in the courts and in the court of public opinion over the future of the estuary.

Environmentalists, local activists, national politicians, scientists, and the Department

Summer Brennan was born to parents living in a houseboat on the San Francisco Bay. She has written for magazines and newspapers all over the country and works regularly with the United Nations Press Office in New York covering issues related to decolonization, disarmament, human rights and the environment. As an undergraduate at Bennington she studied with Mary Oliver. Later she took her masters from NYU in journalism and the Middle East.The Oyster Wars is her first book.