WILDCOAST

WILDCOAST, founded in 2000, is an international team that conserves coastal and marine ecosystems and addresses climate change through natural solutions. To achieve our mission, we establish and manage protected areas, protect and restore blue carbon ecosystems, and partner with local communities, governments, and the private sector.COSTASALVAJE, WILDCOASTs Mexico division, was established in 2008, and we are currently a registered tax-deductible, non-profit organization in both the United States and Mexico. We have a staff of 28 spread among offices in San Diego, Tijuana, Ensenada, La Paz, Oaxaca, and Mexico City.Natural Climate SolutionsMexico:Through legal protection and management, we are conserving and restoring 32,189 acres of mangrove forests in the Mexican states of Baja California Sur and Oaxaca that store 13 million tons of carbon. In the process, we are helping to create hundreds of local jobs restoring these mangrove forests that help address the climate crisis. We collaborate with groups of women from five regions of Mexico to train and equip them with the knowledge to carry out mangrove conservation and restoration in their local communities. We have planted over 178,000 mangrove seedlings, restoring 271 acres with local women from Laguna San Ignacio, Baja California Sur, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the worlds most pristine gray whale breeding lagoon.California:In Southern California, we are restoring 50.5 acres of wetlands that currently store over 3,000 tons of carbon and sequester roughly 40 tons of carbon every year. We partner with Scripps Institution of Oceanography to measure the amount of carbon stored in the sediment of coastal wetlands. We have gathered over 500 samples of blue carbon in five San Diego County wetlands that help us inform conservation policy and restoration.We also co-lead the Blue Carbon Collaborative with our partners at Coastal Quest, an international community of stakeholders that work together to align and advance blue carbon initiatives.California Marine Protected AreasWe help to manage and conserve 545,280 acres of marine protected areas off California's coast through innovative compliance initiatives such as the MPA Watch community science program and Tidepool Ambassador Program. We have deployed three Marine Monitor (M2) RADAR units adjacent to 14,534 acres of San Diego County MPAs and provide data to local wardens and the District Attorneys office. Coral ReefsWe are strengthening the management of 38.6 million acres of protected areas that are home to more than 1,611 acres of coral reef ecosystems of the Mexican Pacific. These coral reefs produce up to 38,000 tons of marine life per acre that end up in adjacent fishing areas each year. To safeguard these critical marine ecosystems, we monitor coral reefs across nine marine protected areas in Mexico, promote reef stewardship, and educate communities and tourism outfitters about the importance of healthy and thriving coral reef ecosystems. We have also installed 220 conservation buoys that help protect reefs in Mexico by providing vessels with a safe place to anchor, rather than dropping anchor on the reef.Marine DebrisSince 2021, our trash boom in Tijuana near the US-Mexico border, the first-ever solid waste retention system in Mexico, has stopped 200,000+ pounds of plastic and debris from reaching the Pacific Ocean and contaminating a bi-national network of coastal, marine, and island protected areas. We plan to install a second trash boom in the El Pato neighborhood of Tijuana in late 2024 that will collect an additional 3,000 lbs of trash every month. Sea TurtlesIn Oaxaca, Mexico, we protect 22.5 miles of coastline and monitor arribadas (mass sea turtle nesting events) at Escobilla and Morro Ayuta beaches, the two most important olive ridley sea turtle nesting beaches in the world, where more than 2.5 million turtles have laid eggs and more than 72 million eggs have hatched since 2017. Additionally, WILDCOAST successfully advocated for the creation of the 224-acre Morro Ayuta Sanctuary, declared on January 8th, 2024, that will provide even greater protection for nesting turtles. WildlandsIn order to conserve the last remaining coastal wilderness along the Pacific coast of the Baja California Peninsula, we established the WILDCOAST Valle de los Cirios Coastal Reserve through private land acquisition and conservation easements. The reserve consists of 39.5 miles of coastline and 51,938.5 acres of desert wilderness, making it the largest private coastal conservation reserve in all of northwest Mexico and the Californias.