Our Mission
Friends of Griffith Park is a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable group that promotes the enlightened stewardship of Griffith Park so it can survive and thrive well beyond the 21st century.
Why does the Park need friends? While some attractions in Griffith Park have well-established groups supporting their missions, until now no one has worked to sustain the whole of the Park. Friends of Griffith Park seeks to conserve its essence, its irreplaceable environment and the history it enfolds.
The impact of reductions in funding, maintenance and staffing is evident in the Park’s deteriorating landscapes and historic features. Rising pressures to reposition the Park as a revenue source — thereby opening the door to commercial developments that encroach on its free and open character — pose a parallel threat. Unless we act now, Griffith Park will cease to be the natural escape from urban pressures that Colonel Griffith envisioned when he donated the Park to the people 115 years ago.
Through advocacy, support, education and service, Friends of Griffith Park works to preserve Griffith Park as L.A.’s signature green and open space, place of free recreation, and linchpin in the survival of Southern California’s native ecosystems. Recognizing the challenges facing the Park, we work to ensure:
- That Griffith Park’s long-standing role and function as a place of free enjoyment be continued in the 21st Century placing emphasis on non-fee activities, with fee-based activities kept to the status quo and such charges held to the minimum.
- That Griffith Park’s established recreational uses and users be recognized and that the City avoid their displacement.
- That Griffith Park’s long-standing role and function as the City’s greatest natural, open space be recognized and that the Park be designated, managed and maintained as an Urban Wilderness, with the ultimate goal to preserve, enhance, and sustain the rich biodiversity that exists in the park today.
- That Griffith Park’s Los Angeles River frontage and lands be restored as a riparian habitat for nature viewing, education and recreational enjoyment.
- That in keeping with Griffith Park’s wilderness interior and the closure plan in place, Toyon Canyon Landfill be restored as a natural, passive use meadow.
- That Griffith Park’s natural areas be expanded by acquiring remaining open spaces within and around its borders.