An oil platform blowout off the coast of Santa Barbara not only galvanized the community and state but led to a wave of environmental laws nationwide. On January 28, 1969, thousands of barrels of oil spilled into the ocean off Platform A about 5 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara. That gave impetus to what we consider now the cornerstones to the modern environmental movement. A year later, the first Earth Day was held. A bipartisan effort in Washington, D.C., passed the National Environmental Policy Act and President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. A succession of other laws protecting water, marine life and endangered species followed. The Santa Barbara oil spill was the environmental shot heard around the world.
Channel Islands Restoration
Channel Islands Restoration is a non-profit contractor that works to restore habitat on the Channel Islands and adjacent mainland through invasive plant management, native plant propagation, and native plant installation. We work to promote environmental education on the Central Coast through lectures, service trips, and habitat restoration volunteer opportunities. We conduct research and monitoring programs to identify and inform further habitat restoration efforts.
Community Environmental Council
For nearly decades, CEC has incubated and innovated real life solutions that directly impact climate change. Our programs lead to clean vehicles, solar energy, resilient food systems and reduction of single-use plastic. We educate and activate the community by producing events like the annual Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival. CEC's mission is to identify, advocate, and raise awareness about the most pressing environmental issues in the Santa Barbara region. Today, CEC is focused on pioneering real life solutions in areas with the biggest impact on climate change – most notably energy, transportation, and food systems.
Earth Day Festival
The Community Environmental Council hosts its annual two-day Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival at Alameda Park Saturday, every April. The festival - which is free to attend - will be a space to gather community together, give thanks for our planet, and continue the healing process as we deal with the devastation brought on by the fire and flooding in our region. As with the oil spill crisis that led to the first Earth Day in 1970, it will also provide a space to inspire possibilities - with ideas for rebuilding, opportunities for increasing resiliency, and reinvigorated efforts to combat the root causes of climate change so we can mitigate the impact and intensity of future natural disasters.
Environmental Defense Center
The Environmental Defense Center works to protect and enhance the local environment through education, advocacy, and legal action. Focus: Since 1977, we have empowered community-based organizations to advance environmental protection. Our program areas include climate and energy, protecting open space and wildlife, clean water, and the Santa Barbara Channel. We primarily work within Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties.
Gaviota Coast Conservancy
Dedicated to protecting and preserving the unique and precious rural Gaviota Coast, we're an advocacy group representing one of the California coastline's rare undeveloped coastal wilderness. Our Mission is to protect, restore and enhance the unique natural, scenic, agricultural, recreational, educational and cultural resources of the open space lands of the Gaviota Coast for the benefit of current and future generations.
Get Oil Out!
Get Oil Out! (GOO!) was formed in the wake of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill of 1969. The shock and horror of that environmental disaster inspired a generation of environmentalists to fight oil pollution and to fight oil addiction. Over the years GOO! has had many successes in fighting to protect California from further oil development and exploitation. The mission of GOO! is to protect the Santa Barbara Channel and coastline from all environmental, economic and esthetic encroachments by petroleum development.
Heal the Ocean
Heal the Ocean focuses on wastewater infrastructure – sewers and septic systems – as well as ocean dumping practices that have contributed to ocean pollution. We are focused on Santa Barbara County, but our methods are now serving as a model for other coastal communities across the country. Heal the Ocean was formed in August 1998 in Santa Barbara, California, in response to the closing of local beaches due to bacteria. Its original organizers are Hillary Hauser, a journalist who has covered marine topics, and Jeff Young, an attorney who once owned an oyster farm that was polluted out of business in the late 1980s.
Land Trust for Santa Barbara County
In 1985, the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County was formed when the Santa Ynez Valley Land Trust and Carpinteria Valley Land Trust combined to serve the entire county. Today, the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County has helped to preserve over 27,000 acres of natural resource and agricultural land, including the Arroyo Hondo Preserve, Sedgwick Reserve, Carpinteria Bluffs, Coronado Butterfly Preserve, Point Sal, Carpinteria Salt Marsh and several ranches on the Gaviota Coast.
Los Padres ForestWatch
Los Padres ForestWatch is the only local nonprofit organization protecting wildlife, wilderness, and clean water throughout the Los Padres National Forest, the Carrizo Plain National Monument, and other public lands along California's central coast for the benefit of our communities and future generations. Ever since 2004, ForestWatch has served as a powerful advocate for our region's wildlife habitats and wilderness landscapes. With thousands of supporters, ForestWatch is leading the charge to protect and restore the forests, chaparral, grasslands, rivers, wildlife, and wilderness along California's Central Coast.
Santa Barbara Beautiful
At Santa Barbara Beautiful, we believe that the aesthetics of a place matter. Since 1965, Santa Barbara Beautiful has planted over 12,000 trees, provided over five hundred thousand dollars in grants to support local art and design projects, funded scholarships to students majoring in environmental horticulture, and celebrated numerous individuals, residences, and businesses that have demonstrated exceptional efforts to make Santa Barbara beautiful.
Santa Barbara Channelkeeper
Santa Barbara Channelkeeper is a grassroots non-profit organization whose mission is to protect and restore the Santa Barbara Channel and its watersheds through science-based advocacy, education, field work and enforcement. We work on the water and in the communities along the Santa Barbara Channel to monitor water quality, restore aquatic ecosystems, advocate for clean water, enforce environmental laws, and educate and engage citizens in implementing solutions to water pollution and aquatic habitat degradation.
Santa Barbara County Trails Council
The Santa Barbara County Trails Council is a grassroots membership organization that has worked vigorously on behalf of people of Santa Barbara County to enhance the county's trail network for over 50 years. We are inclusive in our support for volunteering, collaborating and advocating for trail access on behalf of hikers, runners, bikers, equestrians and all others who use trails for outdoor recreation.
Santa Barbara Urban Creeks Council
The Santa Barbara Urban Creeks Council was formed to encourage the preservation, protection, and restoration of natural and urban streams. Our goal is to educate decision makers and the general public on the aesthetic, recreational and ecological values of natural streams located near our homes, places of employment, farms, or in commercial and industrial urban areas. In order to promote these values, the Urban Creeks Council holds regular meetings, develops educational materials, and hosts workshops and field outings to increase the awareness of the value of our natural streams, for the public as well as for engineering and planning professionals.
Sierra Club, Los Padres Chapter
The Los Padres Chapter of the Sierra Club serves California's Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. Illustrated is the California Condor, the endangered species of which our Club's newsletter, The Condor Call, is named after. Our mountains are the primary recovery site for this largest of all of North America's birds. The Club encompasses a wide and unique diversity of natural resources. From our wilderness areas in the Santa Ynez Mountains to the coastal beauty of "America's Riviera" we have a number of America's most special places.
