U.S. House passes plan to protect 245,000 acres as wilderness on the Central Coast
An effort to save 245,000 acres of wilderness on the Central Coast and create a new 400-mile trail across condor country from Monterey County to Los Angeles was advanced by the House of Representatives Wednesday.
Introduced by Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, last year, the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act was passed by a majority of house members as part of Protecting America’s Wilderness Act — a package that together would establish 1.4 million acres of land in California, Colorado and Washington as wilderness, the highest level of protection possible.
“We’ve been trying to protect these lands for 11 years,” said Rebecca August with Los Padres National Forest Watch. “These ecosystems are rare.”
In San Luis Obispo County, large swaths of grasslands and coastal mountains in the Carrizo Plain National Monument would become wilderness; The highest peak in the county would be protected as the Caliente Mountain Wilderness; And the boundaries of Garcia Wilderness and Santa Lucia Wilderness in Los Padres National Forest would expand.
All commercial logging, oil development and road construction in those areas would be prohibited.
If the act becomes law, it would establish a new Condor National Recreation Trail, creating a single hiking path spanning the Los Padres as a National Scenic Trail. It would also protect hundreds of miles of rivers across the region as wild and scenic.
What happens next is up to the Republican-controlled Senate. President Donald Trump has already said he would veto the bill if it reached his desk.
This story was originally published February 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
