A grassroots campaign to protect Californians’ right to public beach access is stopping in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara this week. It comes as the Trump administration considers defunding the California Coastal Commission.
Environmental advocates with the Surfrider Foundation are traveling up the coast to rally support for the state’s Coastal Act, a law that protects coastal ecosystems and guarantees public access to beaches.
According to organizers, if the Coastal Commission were dismantled, there would be no one to enforce that law. This could open the door to more private security, “no trespassing” signs and limited access to shorelines.
The Surfrider foundation is collecting handwritten postcards for people to share what California’s beaches mean to them and to call on lawmakers to protect the coast.
“We’ll be taking these stacks of postcards to the legislative offices so they can see, ‘here's your constituents sharing their views on protecting the coast with you in this very tangible way,’” Surfrider’s California Policy Associate Director Jennifer Savage said.
Savage said the organization has already collected more than 300 postcards.
The Surfrider Foundation will collect signatures in Santa Barbara on Wednesday, April 23. They will be at UCSB’s Buchanan Room from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. It will also stop at Cal Poly SLO on Friday, April 25 for the Make Waves Film Festival, starting at 7 p.m. at the campus Plant Conservatory.
