Santa Barbara Congressmember Salud Carbajal is seeking to protect swaths of the local environment, even as the current administration actively dismantles environmental guardrails.

Legally designating land as “wilderness” grants it the highest level of federal protections, Carbajal explained at a press conference last Wednesday. His bill aims to slap that label across more than 280,000 acres of public land in the Los Padres National Forest and Carrizo Plain National Monument to grant them a legislative shield against anything that may interfere with their cultural, ecological, or historical resources and values.

Called the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act, the bill would also designate a 400-mile Condor National Recreation Trail, stretching from Los Angeles to Monterey County, for preservation and public enjoyment.

(It will not, however, overlap with the separately managed BLM [Bureau of Land Management] lands that are at risk of being put up for sale for new oil and gas leasing — see a map here).

Carbajal said he was spurred into action by federal attacks against established environmental protections. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, is taking shears to multiple rules and regulations she’s deemed as “overly restrictive” and “cumbersome” — particularly to timber and other industries that are friendly with the Trump administration.

Santa Barbara County officials and members of locally-based environmental groups joined congressmember Salud Carbajal for a conference on Carbajal’s reintroduction of the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act, which if passed, would protect much of the local environment. | Credit: Callie Fausey

It’s a slew of ‘re-‘s. For starters, she’s attempting to rescind a rule that protects 58 million acres of National Forests’ wildest, undeveloped, roadless areas (the “Roadless Rule”). The rule is under threat due to Rollins’s outspoken support of clearing forests for development, domestic timber production, and fighting fires, but Carbajal’s bill would provide permanent protection regardless.

Rollins is also greatly reducing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA requires federal agencies to assess the environmental impacts of their proposed actions and consider alternatives before making decisions — preventing them from simply steamrolling any land and wildlife standing in their way.

Additionally, she recently announced plans to “reorganize” the USDA, which oversees the National Forest Service. The USDA announcement makes claims of “overspending” and “mismanagement” within the department, creating what Rollins called a “bloated, expensive, and unsustainable organization.” The announcement comes on the heels of 15,364 employees leaving the USDA’s workforce by voluntarily taking early retirements, and thousands of Forest Service employees being involuntarily laid off.

Rollins’s reorganization and consolidation — exempting front-line, national security, and public safety positions (such as firefighters) — includes the phasing out of the Forest Service’s nine Regional Offices and stand-alone research stations over the next year. Los Padres National Forest is in Region 5, the Pacific Southwest.

Concerns linger over how this ends for the country’s national forests and parks. The nonprofit Los Padres ForestWatch is worried about the impact of losing more local staff and ecological expertise, especially with the dismantling of the service’s Regional Offices, which provide oversight and support to individual ranger districts. However, all individual, place-based ranger districts will remain open and staffed, as well as the Los Padres Supervisor’s Office in Solvang.

Although the impacts of the regional closures are uncertain as of now, the National Association of Forest Service Retirees, which includes past Los Padres supervisors, wrote a letter to the USDA, saying, “We do not see anything in the proposal that would improve services or efficiency. Rather, it appears to simply cut staffing and funding without describing how the work will continue to get done. It provides the classic direction to do more with less.”

Congressionally speaking, it’s a bleak time for Carbajal to be re-introducing his bill — which has passed in the House five times previously but made it no further — but he still spoke optimistically about garnering bipartisan support.

According to a recent article by Reuters, bipartisan support for protecting public lands and keeping them open is at an all time high, despite federal actions suggesting the opposite. Wilderness protection has long been bipartisan — going back to Republican presidents Teddy Rosevelt, who created the U.S. Forest Service; Richard Nixon, who established the Environmental Protection Agency; and Ronald Reagan, who signed into law the California Wilderness Bill in the ’80s. Carbajal also noted that the outdoor recreation economy is worth over $70 billion today.

“These attacks on our public lands are heartbreaking, but now is not the time to give up,” Carbajal said. “Like many of you, I’m angry and I’m disappointed, but I’m also more determined than ever before to get this bill over the finish line so we can protect the Central Coast’s natural treasures for our kids, grandkids, and future generations.”

Supervisor Laura Capps showed her appreciation for the press conference’s location, Rocky Nook Park, where she grew up playing as a kid. | Credit: Callie Fausey

Other public leaders, including County Supervisor Laura Capps, and environmental advocates, such as those from ForestWatch, seconded that support for public lands during Wednesday’s press conference. Capps spoke highly of the event’s location, Rocky Nook Park, on Mission Canyon Road, which is a permanently preserved park with trees and streams teeming with bugs and birds that she grew up playing in as a little girl.

“[Wilderness] is where wildlife thrives. It’s where our water sources begin,” she said. “And the Carrizo Plain is the largest remaining native grassland in California and one of the state’s most intact ecosystems, home to 13 endangered species and [more than] 200 bird species. “

Others brought up what’s at risk when natural spaces are not protected — decimated landscapes, increased drilling and clearing of land that provides habitat and recreation, loss of iconic and historic areas, and exacerbated effects of the climate crisis.

Right now, Los Padres National Forest is burning in the Gifford Fire, and wildfires are only expected to become more prevalent due to our warming climate, alongside other climate change consequences like higher temperatures, worsened air quality, and longer and drier droughts.

“Communities like ours will bear the brunt of the climate crisis and now, more than ever, we need bold solutions to preserve our environment’s health,” Carbajal said.