The Trust For Public Land Praises Obama California Monument Decision

The Trust for Public Land today praised President Obama’s decision to expand the California Coastal National Monument by including the Coast Dairies ranch, a six-mile-long Santa Cruz seaside property of meadows, redwood forests, and panoramic ocean views.

“Millions of people have enjoyed the beautiful views at Coast Dairies and today’s proclamation means this stunning place will forever be protected for people to enjoy,” said Will Rogers, President of The Trust for Public Land. “We worked for many years to save this land and President Obama’s far-sighted decision is a great capstone to that effort.”

Coast Dairies, a pastoral expanse of rolling fields, redwood trees and panoramic vistas, is among six properties included in Obama’s expansion of the California Coastal National Monument. That monument was created in 2000 by President Bill Clinton and includes all islets, reefs and rocks along California’s entire 1,100-mile coast. It includes an estimated 20,000 such outcroppings.

Obama acted under the Antiquities Act, a 1906 law which gives a president the legal power to create national monuments. He has recently used the law a number of times to either create new monuments or expanding existing monuments, such as the California announcement.

The Coast Dairies land had long been eyed for development, so in 1998, with help from the Save-the-Redwoods League, The Trust for Public Land bought all the stock of Coast Dairies & Land Co, which had owned the land since 1902. The Trust for Public Land then arranged for CDLC to donate the land into public ownership, starting with 407 acres transferred to the California state parks system in 2006, and 5,843 acres to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2014.

Contact: Tim Ahern
T. 415-710-9095