By Victoria Brandon, Redwood Chapter Chair
On March 11, 2014 President Obama used his authority under the Antiquities Act to issue a proclamation adding the 1665-acre Point Arena-Stornetta Public Lands to the California Coastal National Monument, allowing the Monument to “walk on shore” (in the words of California Bureau of Land Management Director Jim Kenna) for the first time.
Under the management of the BLM Ukiah field office since 2004, Point Arena-Stornetta is located on Mendocino County’s south coast adjacent to Manchester State Beach and the Point Arena Lighthouse. It includes more than two miles of Pacific coastline with natural bridges, tide pools, waterfalls, sinkholes and blowholes, as well as two miles of the Garcia River, the Garcia estuary, a quarter-mile of beach adjacent to Manchester State Park, and a five-acre island called Sea Island Rocks. The area is recognized not only for breathtaking scenic values, but also for outstanding natural resources that include riparian corridors, extensive coastal wetlands, wind-sculptured stands of cypress, wildflower-strewn meadows, and shifting sand dunes, a varied ecosystem which taken as a whole provides significant wildlife habitat. Otters and seals gambol in the surf, brown pelicans sail by in characteristic single file, and countless gulls and shorebirds call the area home. 
Overwhelming public enthusiasm for adding this spectacular area to the Monument was obvious last November, when a standing-room-only crowd of at least 300 people crammed into the diminutive Point Arena city hall to welcome Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, Congressman Jared Huffman, BLM Deputy Director Neil Kornze, and countless other federal, state, and local dignitaries. When Secretary Jewell asked if she should recommend that the President give Point Arena-Stornetta Monument status, every hand in the room reached towards the sky (including her own).
On March 12, the day after the Presidential declaration, Secretary Jewell came back to the coast to join numerous other agency officials, representatives of Congressmen Mike Thompson and Jared Huffman, local tribal members, and many community activists in a day of rejoicing at the culmination of so many years of collaborative effort.
Hundreds of people gathered on a headland under a bright blue sky full of wheeling gulls and before a backdrop of crashing surf to hug, cheer, applaud, wave flags and listen to a succession of speakers marvel at the place, and to affirm the solidarity of the community in making this achievement possible.
Members of the Point Arena/Manchester Band of Pomo Indians opened the gathering with a prayer and dances, and students from Pacific Community Charter School closed it by singing “This Land is Your Land.”
In between Secretary Jewell pointed out that “great places drive local economies” and “it takes a village to make a monument.” She also mentioned President Obama’s belief in our “moral obligation to leave these lands better than we found them,” and along with Mike Boots of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality referred to the President’s fulfillment of his State of the Union promise to “use my authority to protect more of our pristine federal lands for future generations.”
This was a day of pure joy, a celebration of a spectacular landscape, of the communities that cherish its wonders, and of the most admirable attributes of this our nation.
Sierra Club Redwood Chapter 