Earth Day was extra special this year in Laguna Beach! Laguna Canyon Foundation and Orange County Parks celebrated the 25th anniversary of Laguna Coast Wilderness Park on Sunday, April 22nd. LCF and OC Parks volunteers greeted park visitors with information and gifts at the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park entrances.
Can you picture the 133 lined with 3,204 housing units, golf courses, a fire station, commercial shopping centers, and a school? Coastal sage scrub? Gone. Trails? Gone. Unobstructed canyon views? Gone. That’s what Laguna Coast Wilderness Park would have been if the city of Laguna Beach and its environmental community hadn’t come together and saved the land we all know and love from the planned Laguna Laurel development.
In 1989, 8,000 people participated in the “March to Save Laguna Canyon,” protesting the Irvine Company’s impending development of Laguna Canyon. This led to a 1990 historic purchase agreement between the Irvine Company, the City of Laguna Beach, the County of Orange, and local environmental organizations. That year, in order to kick off the land purchase, Laguna Beach residents voted in favor of a $20 million bond measure, taxing themselves to pay for the purchase of the land. It was then that Laguna Canyon Foundation was born – a nonprofit whose original purpose was to promote awareness, secure funding for land purchases, establish the wilderness parks, and make sure the land would be protected in perpetuity.
Fast forward 25 years: Laguna Coast Wilderness Park is part of the 22,000 acres of the coastal canyon parks that surround Laguna Beach. So next time you drive down the 133, make sure to breathe in that coastal sage scrub and say a little thank you for our wildlands!
