A brochure on nature at the Visitor's center at the Presidio in San Francisco shows the maps the biosphere at The Presidio. The Golden Gate Biosphere reserve offers evergreen forests, including Coast redwoods. It is a diverse area where one can enjoy hiking, bicycling and whale watching.
"The Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve is a biosphere reserve in Northern California. It was created by UNESCO in 1988, and encompasses thirteen protected areas in the San Francisco Bay Area. It encompasses a diverse range of marine, coastal and upland habitats of the California chaparral and woodlands and Northern California coastal forests ecoregions, including mixed evergreen forests, Coast Redwood forests, Douglas-fir forests, Bishop pine forests, oak forests, woodlands and savannas, northern coastal scrub, chaparral, coastal dune, coastal strand, tidepools, kelp forests, coastal grasslands, and marshes.
The conservation units that make up the biosphere reserve include:
Audubon Canyon Ranch
Bodega Marine Reserve
Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary
Golden Gate National Recreation Area
Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary
Farallon National Wildlife Refuge
Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve
Marin Municipal Water District
Mount Tamalpais State Park
Point Reyes National Seashore
San Francisco Peninsula Watershed (San Francisco Public Utilities Commission)
Tomales Bay State Park
Samuel P. Taylor State Park." (
visit link)
"The Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve is a partnership of 13 protected areas in the greater San Francisco Bay area. It extends through the central California coastal region from the Bodega Research Reserve in the north to Jasper Ridge in the south and includes the Farallon Islands, Angel Island and Alcatraz within the San Francisco Bay. The biosphere reserve is situated on both sides of the San Andreas Fault. Each side has a completely different type of bedrock and the western side of the rift is moving northward.
Habitats in the biosphere reserve are diverse and include mixed evergreen forests, redwood forests, Douglas fir forests, Bishop pine forests, oak forests, woodlands and savannas, coastal scrub, chaparral, coastal dune, coastal strand, tidepools, kelp forests, grasslands and marshes.
The associated fauna is also rich with cougars, Tule elk, California sea lions, elephant seals and many shorebirds.
The Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve is unique in that it spans marine, coastal, and upland resources adjacent to a major metropolitan area, and thus provides easy access to outdoor education and recreation for the inhabitants of the San Francisco Bay metropolitan area. The area supports many recreational activities such as sport fisheries, hiking, bicycling and whale watching.
The biosphere reserve is organized under an association with three councils, which are responsible for management, science and education projects. For instance, members cooperate on tidal pool monitoring and public education in the area of Mt. Tamalpais State Park. Another joint activity is the Coho salmon restoration project which requires habitat inventorying and mapping of several critical watersheds. The biosphere reserve also cooperates with the Iroise Biosphere Reserve (France) in a comparison of coastal ecosystem recovery after human use changes. Research covers topics such as the management of commercially important resources (e.g. fisheries), threats to ecosystems (e.g. oil spills, pollutants, and invasive species) and episodic events (e.g. fires and climate extremes)." (
visit link)