The End of a Long Good Run

If you are reading this column, it means that you have come to the end of the last issue of Coast and Ocean. Launched in 1985 as WaterfrontAge, for nearly 25 years Coast & Ocean has covered both the doings of the Coastal Conservancy and the larger stories, trends, and issues affecting California’s coast. Despite years of budget cuts, California’s coastal management program continues to stagger forward; after a mandatory 15 percent cut in the Coastal Conservancy’s operating budget, this magazine is something we can no longer afford to publish.

Among the magazines and newsletters published or funded by public agencies, Coast & Ocean has been unique for at least two reasons. First, it is the only publication in the state, and maybe anywhere, that is exclusively devoted to the coast and its environs. Second, it has been operated with a great deal of editorial independence from the State agency that funds most of it. I also happen to think that it is the best-written and best-looking magazine of its kind.

As far as Coastal Conservancy news, there has been little to report since our portfolio of over 300 grants and contracts was frozen in place at the end of last year, and only recently have we been able to restart about 70 percent of these. The rest remain frozen. We haven’t launched any new bond-funded projects since then, and it’s anyone’s guess when we will be giving the green light again. Nearly all of our grantees are in severe financial distress; some of the smaller ones have gone out of business entirely.

However, Coast & Ocean has found plenty of bigger issues to cover, including marine protected areas, the crises of salmon, climate change, and off-shore oil are in the news. Desalination, ocean zoning, aquaculture, and wind and wave energy loom in the future. Although development is in a slump, it will assuredly come back, and we will be reminded that our coastal lands are finite. Unfortunately, we will respond to all of these issues and more without Coast & Ocean to help establish a context and history.

Eventually California will emerge from its budget woes, as it always does. There is even talk of reform in the air; perhaps some of the structural causes of our deficits will be, finally, fixed. (I wouldn’t be much of a liberal if I couldn’t hold on to irrational hope, now would I?) In the meantime, plenty of damage will be done. The many state parks that are closed will be in shabby condition if they are ever reopened. Species will go extinct because we couldn’t list them as endangered in time, or couldn’t protect enough of their habitat. Our inability to spend bond money now means we will miss out on some once-in-a-lifetime deals when real estate prices are at historic lows, and treasured coastal land that citizens have long fought to save will be left unprotected. And then there is everything outside of our limited domain at the Coastal Conservancy that is not being attended to, such as our roads, schools and, most important, people.

For all of its natural beauty, it is the diversity and complexity of our people that makes California such an interesting and vibrant state. Likewise, the Coastal Conservancy wouldn’t be what it is without its staff, and Coast & Ocean has been blessed over the years with its own extraordinary collection of people who have labored very hard for very little to publish the magazine. Editor Rasa Gustaitis and her colleagues Hal Hughes and Eileen Ecklund have made an elegant, readable something out of nothing four times a year for decades, and as much as we will miss the magazine, we will miss them more.

Sam Schuchat is the executive officer of the Coastal Conservancy.