- WOMAN: Vacation for me is usually an escape from work.

But this time, I wanted something more.

- ♪ - [waves crashing] - [seagulls squawking] - ♪ - [birds chirping] - ♪ - [waves crashing] - ♪ - GREG: It is a magical spot.

It refreshes the spirit.

I think it reconnects us to nature in a way that, uh, you know, cities can't.

- LEON: I represented this area in the Congress.

I've traveled all over the world.

And we always felt that this is, you know, one of the most beautiful areas on the face of the earth.

- DINA: We're watching sea level rise happening on certainly a yearly basis.

And I keep thinking that if this beach is here in 10 years, I'll be surprised.

- LUCAS: Now, in this generation, I think you're seeing maybe a new generation of environmental justice activists, um, who are rooted in working-class communities, immigrant communities, communities of color.

- ALISON: This is going to open up new experiences for them to think about what their life possibilities are.

- GRAHAM: Your actions matter.

And you'll never, ever know, you'll never be able to calculate your impact on the community around you.

So just assume that what you do is being seen.

- ♪ - MANDY: The Coastal Act came out of a movement of activists sort of joining forces.

It was a ballot referendum.

And people voted on it.

The people of California wanted this law, and by and large stand by it today.

We want to preserve our natural resources as public goods, as things that we can count on.

- One of the big mandates of the California Coastal Act, which is the law under which the California Coastal Commission works, is to maximize public access to and along the coast.

In other words, the California coast is for all citizens of California and the world.

- LUCAS: The Coastal Act is really a radical idea.

That the coast belongs to all people, and that it's going to be protected for the use and enjoyment and long-term needs of everyone in California.

- MANDY: It designated a coastal zone.

It appointed a coastal commission to regulate development.

And the whole purpose is to preserve our coast in a more natural space that protects our recreational opportunities, it protects our sensitive habitats, it protects our public resources and public views.

- On the 40th of anniversary of the California Coastal Act, we wanted to take a look at how access issues and challenges are changing today, and what is the state of access to the coast for Californians today.

- LUCAS: Our coast is still used for economic activity.

But the Coastal Act says that you've gotta balance that with the needs of the people who live here in California and people's right to really enjoy sacred place and sacred land.

That's made California fundamentally different, where you might have, in another state, an area where some incredibly wealthy person owns this land and they can say, you know, nobody's allowed here.

- MANDY: If you look at other states, New Jersey, Florida, a lot of them have development right up to the beach.

It's impossible to actually get there.

And so we had the Coastal Act sort in place, I think, just in time to preserve a lot of our access and a lot of our natural, pristine coastline.

- You can have the most wealthy Hollywood celebrity or kind of tech tycoon who can buy this gorgeous, multimillion-dollar beachfront mansion, and regular people are still allowed to go to the beach right in front of it.

- MANDY: Ultimately our public resources in California, such as our public beaches, our beautiful coastline, they belong to all Californians.

And that's what the Coastal Act codified into law.

- LUCAS: The Coastal Act has made that a different experience for people in California.

I think that promise isn't fully fulfilled for communities like Oxnard, communities like Wilmington in LA or Barrio Logan in San Diego, whose coasts really haven't fully been restored for those communities and whose coasts really are still primarily used for industry.

But the fact that the Coastal Act says that this is supposed to be for the public gives something to envision.

The Coastal Act is giving a direction that says, "We've gotta take this back for the people."

- JON: It was a result both of concerted citizen activism and advocacy and organizing, as well as enlightened leadership in the California legislature, to push it through.

It's not as if there wasn't resistance at the time.

There was, as there still is, to, you know, some of the efforts of the Coastal Commission in particular you know, to protect the coast.

- Well, the Coastal Commission has been very good to our city, and has helped us protect what is important on the coast for us.

- Enlightened political leadership also often comes from citizens making sure that their legislators know that they care about the coast, that it's important to them, that they want it protected, and that they want to have access to it.

The citizen activism and advocacy and passion, caring, voting for the coast, is going to continue to be essential for protecting the California coast.

- BEN: Oftentimes when we take kids out here for the very first time, and we ask them whose beach is this, they'll point at me or they'll point at one of my staff.

And it's really thanks to the California Coastal Act and the work of the commission and the conservancy that our answer is actually, "No, "the beach and the coast belongs to everyone, including you and your family."

That right is written into our state law.

I can really see the power of the Coastal Act in their faces when they understand that this is an area for them as well.

- ♪ - ♪ - The California Coastal Trail's a great idea that's in the making right now.

Ultimately, we hope it's gonna be a 1,200-mile trail that will literally go from the Oregon border all the way down to the Mexican border.

- [waves crashing] - ♪ - GREG: Obviously the California coastline I think has some of the most breathtaking views you're gonna find anywhere in the world.

I think people just have a love for the ocean, for the environment.

And the California Coastal Trails kind of ties that all together in a nice, neat package.

- [waves crashing] - ♪ - GREG: It'll be always within the sight and smell or the sound of the Pacific Ocean.

And it'll be a braided trail system.

And by that I mean portions of it may be an established Class One bike path, some of it may be a dirt trail or an equestrian trail, some of it'll be a jogging trail.

And they'll kind of come together in making sure that the California Coastal Trail is an integrated part of their communities.

- [insects chirping] - ♪ - [seagull squawking] - GREG: Well, the California Coastal Trail is kind of, uh, a little bit of a patchwork effort right now.

There's segments that are done in different communities.

Probably I think close to 50% of the California Coastal Trail is already there.

It's just a matter of tying it all together and putting up the right signage and letting people ultimately know that this is gonna be a trail that'll go from the Oregon border all the way down to the Mexican border.

- ♪ - ZOE: When the road went out in 1995, people weren't supposed to come look, but we all did.

And walking on this stretch of road at that time, when there were no cars on it, it was a complete goosebump moment.

It was like, "Okay, that's it."

We have to have this as a trail, because there's really nothing quite like it anywhere in the world.

It is so spectacular.

- [waves crashing] - Highway 1 was built back in the early 1900s and almost immediately became a problem here at Devil's Slide with landslides.

The road would wash out.

- DON: It was called Devil's Slide because it was a treacherous roadway.

Originally I used to be a sheriff before I was on the board of supervisors.

And over the years, we used to have rocks falling down and the road, actually parts of it, collapse, so many accidents.

We had a lot of, you know, unfortunate criminal cases that occurred out here, people falling off the side.

- LENNIE: There were a lot of people who went over the edge.

So it was considered a dangerous section of Highway 1, and not reliable.

- [waves crashing] - ZOE: it was clear that something needed to happen.

They needed a permanent solution to this problem.

Caltrans wanted to build an inland freeway bypass that would have essentially destroyed Montara Mountain and this incredible scenic resources here.

It was really a nightmare.

The environmental community, the residents around here, said, "No way, there has to be an alternative."

And the battle raged on for many years.

But it really, really came to a head in 1995, when the road went out and was closed for almost six months.

Huge economic impact, as you might imagine.

The coastal businesses, many of them went out of business.

People were sitting in nightmarish traffic trying to get off the coast, 'cause we really only had one road off the coast at that point.

- [beeping] - ZOE: During that time, a tunnel alternative surfaced.

And we asked for information about the tunnel.

And at that time, our county supervisors didn't really want to do anything but build the bypass.

And so they refused to give us information about the tunnel, which really infuriated a lot of people.

- You got to get active citizens to actually push public policy people like me to make decisions that actually achieve their goal.

- LENNIE: And, uh, we fought the Devil's Slide bypass project.

We put a ballot measure on the ballot that mandated that they build a tunnel instead of the bypass.

- ZOE: And in 1996, the Devil's Slide Tunnel Initiative, Measure T, passed in a landslide, with 76% of the voters saying, "Yep, we want a tunnel."

- [cheers and applause] - ♪ - [birds chirping] - ZOE: So that was back in 1996, and the tunnel didn't open in 2013, so there was a lot of work that was done in those intervening years to make this a reality.

But we think it's worth it.

- ♪ - LENNIE: It was citizens that stopped the bypass.

It was citizens who got the Coastal Act passed.

And this trail is a result of that long, long battle.

- ZOE: This is the culmination, if you will, of many decades of work by thousands of people around this county, this whole region, to protect this amazing little segment of-- of what was Highway 1.

- DON: So the tunnel's been a real, uh, boon.

It really provides a safe, efficient, and reliable transportation.

But at the same time, it freed up this whole roadway to make this into a Devil's Slide Park to give people the ability to actually see and hear and smell the ocean.

- [waves crashing] - DON: 1.3 miles.

It's a pretty good hike going up and down, 'cause, you know, it's a grade here.

We put the bicycles on that side and the pedestrians on this side, and the lookouts in this area.

And there's another one down there as well.

We agreed that this was a scenic part of San Mateo County.

The cliffs, the birds, the geology of this mountain.

- LENNIE: You have a great view of the coast because you're up high over the ocean.

So you can see all kinds of birdlife.

Um, peregrine falcons have a nest on the cliffs.

- DON: Before, when you were driving it, you really never got a chance to look at the ocean.

And because you weren't able to, you know, see anything, nobody really knew, really, the beauty that was out here.

They didn't know about the peregrine falcons.

And there's some other birds that are down here that were almost extinct that are now thriving.

The trail was part of the success story.

- ZOE: People come from all over the country and the world to take a little walk here and sample this amazing piece of the coast.

So the economic benefit to the surrounding communities is huge.

And the more connected and the more complete the coastal trail is, the more the economic benefit.

- So this is a small part of it.

But it's an integral and important part.

It's a safer trail, and, uh, it is a magical spot.

It refreshes the spirit, I think.

It reconnects us to nature in a way that, you know, cities can't.

Cities are great, but if you really want to refresh your spirit, that which makes us human, coming out in nature is, um-- it just brings out all that humanity in us.

And I think that this is something that we've really strived really hard to preserve for the future, to make sure that it's available not only for our children, but our grandchildren and their children and beyond.

- We don't get a second chance once we pave it over.

It's gone.

To me, it's a wonderful chance to just really stay involved in protecting these resources and ensuring that we do the right thing here.

Saving Montara Mountain and preserving this amazing stretch of road for a piece of the coastal trail, a signature piece of the coastal trail, was just delightful.

- JON: The coast belongs to the people.

Anything below the mean high tide is public.

So the popular way of thinking about that, if the sand is wet, it belongs to you and me.

And nobody can block us from being there.

- You have homeowners who are illegally gating public easements to the sand.

But access is affected in much more nuanced ways as well.

It has to do with transportation.

It has to do with parking.

In the summertime, everybody wants to be at the beach.

And there's only so many parking spots on the street where you don't have to pay.

- JON: People who now have a place on the California coast, in communities and towns on the California coast, too often wanna shut the door to other people.

They say, "We've got our beachfront property.

"We don't want other people coming.

"We're gonna put up a gate or close down a road.

"We don't want to have public transportation coming "to our community because the crowds that it'll bring, "the other people that will come there.

"We don't want to prioritize affordable housing "along the coast or affordable overnight accommodations.

"You know, we wanna keep things just as they are.

"We have our little California dream, and we wanna keep it that way."

- ♪ - LUCAS: We believe that the coast belongs to all people in California.

It's not just for the rich who can afford to, you know, buy up land on the coast and develop it.

In communities like Oxnard, we see where that promise hasn't fully become reality.

Communities are separated from the coast by heavy industry, whether that's power plants, oil refineries, commercial ports, shipyards, naval bases, even toxic waste sites.

These things create physical and psychological barriers to people coming and enjoying their coast.

- It's very important that a diversity of people participate in the conversation around access to the beach.

- DINA: We have to think of it in the context of history, right?

And that's what so often doesn't get factored into these conversations.

We think of access as a contemporary issue.

It's part of a larger history that led up to these problems of access.

- ALISON: African-Americans have been demanding their rights to use the beach since the early part of the 20th century.

In some cases, they were inhibited from their full enjoyment of various parts of the coastline because white people were telling them, you know, "You can't be here," even though that was not the case.

Places like public beaches were open for everybody.

- DINA: It's about how indigenous people, how were they the first people to lose access?

How are tribal nations, especially in the Bay Area and down to the Mexican border-- those are the people who've been the first subjects of dispossession and the blocking of access to these very important sites that are historical territories for them, ancestral territories.

- JON: Cultural barriers to access to the California coast all too often are still just as important as the economic barriers-- the cost of visiting the coast, which has gotten out of reach for nearly half of Californians.

- LUCAS: Especially people who don't have enough access to parks in their neighborhood, who don't have enough free places to go, who don't have a big backyard or a--you know, or a big swimming pool or a membership at a gym.

Those are the people who a free public beach means the most to.

- JON: We need to ensure access for all.

And it's what is so important about ensuring that there's a future to the coast, that Californians support a future for the coast.

That the majority of Californians don't just think, "Well, the coast is for somebody else."

Because as soon as that happens, the constituency for coastal protection, for protection of the environment, goes away.

- ♪ - ♪ ♪ - RENO: [speaking Pomo] Reno Keoni Franklin, tribal chairman, Kashia Pomo Tribe.

And, uh, hello.

Uh, my name's Reno Franklin.

And I'm tribal chairman, Kashia Pomo Tribe, and, uh, you are at the Kashia Coastal Reserve, a piece of property that our tribe owns here in northwestern Sonoma County along Highway 1, right at the ocean.

Understanding Kashia's history is understanding the struggle.

200 years ago this year, the Russians came and landed not too far from us at Fort Ross.

And, uh, when they landed, they met with our tribe, Kashia, and signed a treaty with us to allow the Russians to live and to prosper here right alongside of our people.

And so they did for a number of years, but once they left, things started to go south.

There was some laws passed in the state of California that made it legal to kill Indians and take Indian children and put 'em into slavery.

So our people decided that the safest thing for us to do was to begin to isolate ourselves.

And we did.

And we moved to the ranch of a tribal member that lived nearby and had married a German settler, and, uh--around 1860.

And lived there for a number of years, safe and secure.

But when we moved off of our coastline, that marked the end of ownership for our tribe, ownership of land of the coast.

It was the first time that we had not been on our coast for 12,000, 13,000 years.

For Kashia, the sense of place is very important.

You know, the religion not being portable, you know, I can't go to a Kashia place to pray when I'm in Texas, 'cause they don't exist there.

You know, it all exists here on our ancestral lands.

- ♪ - RENO: For 12,500 years, we lived great.

The last 150, we couldn't access our coast.

And if we did access it, we had to ask somebody else for permission.

And so, uh, returning here to this property, returning here to this land, is very significant to us.

It's kind of an emotional experience for most of our people.

- ♪ - RENO: Not too far from here, not even two miles from where we're standing right now, was the last mass killing of Kashia people, up at a place near Plantation, which is not too far from us.

Three Kashia men hung for the crime of being Indian in public.

- ♪ - The Trust for Public Land is a national conservation organization headquartered in San Francisco.

We've been around for about 45 years now.

And our mission is to protect land and to create parks for people.

Our role was to partner up with the Kashia and help to raise the resources so that they could acquire this land.

We had to orchestrate this whole process of pulling in resources from a lot of different places to make this work.

I think we've returned about 200,000 acres to tribes across North America.

And, uh, so their attorney knew about us, gave us a call, invited me to come out and to see this property.

So I came out here one day, met the Kashia, met the landowner.

And we toured around, and it was obvious from day one it was just something we needed to do to help.

- ♪ - BRENDAN: We've done a number of projects along the California coast over our 40-something years now that have taken private land along the coast and made it public again.

On most of those properties, you have trails now, opportunities for the public to get out there, and the coastal trail is all about giving people that coastal experience.

So I think, um, a lot of the segments of the coastal trail, if you follow that story back about how that came to be, I think you'd find the Trust for Public Land was involved.

- RENO: We wanna bring the coastal trail to this piece of property.

Uh, we want to bring the general public out here during certain times of the year and let them experience the beauty of our coast just like all of us do.

While they're doing that, we've got an educational component that we're excited to bring that'll teach our language, it'll teach when you're looking at whales, what our word for "whale" is.

You'll learn a little bit about our history, learn a little bit about the history of the family that we purchased the property from, the Richardsons, good, close personal friends of ours, and begin to experience what, uh-- what Kashia wants people to experience, which is us.

- MARTINA: This land, to me, means everything.

It is a part of who I am.

And being able to have this land back is the most important thing for not just me, my elders, those past, and those present, and those in the future, for the children and the generations coming.

And being able to have this trail come through here and share with the public what they helped return to us is the greater gift, I think, because they can see all the land around us, the mountains above us, and the sea below us.

History is strange in the way that, you know, it's not always gonna start good, but it can end good.

- BRENDAN: We not only did really good environmental conservation, but we actually did something to right a wrong here.

This is social justice happening, and not just environmental conservation.

And that was just deeply rewarding.

And you could see that in the eyes and the faces of the Kashia people who are coming home.

- RENO: On the day that we took the property, we signed the last deed, I cried like a baby.

I'm not gonna lie.

And when our dancers came out and danced again on this property that day, that was the first time in more than 150 years that those songs had been sung just right over there in the other side of those trees.

We had trees up there that are 300, 400 years old.

Some of those trees were here last time that our Kashia tribal members were singing up on that hill, and when you could hear the sound of our clappers and the sound of our singers bouncing off and echoing off those trees, it was powerful.

And so why not want to share that with the general public, who want to come onto this land, and walk this coast, and see a piece of who we are?

How could we not want to share that beauty with people?

And, you know, at the end of the day, that's who we are.

That's who Kashia is, the reciprocity being the law that we follow.

What was given, something else is given in return.

$2.9 million by the county of Sonoma.

We're gonna give back to the people of Sonoma County.

And our way of doing that is by providing them this beauty here that you look at, that we look at.

- ♪ ♪ - BEN: There's the issue of physical access, which is one that California's been working on since the '70s.

And then there's the secondary issue of functional coastal access, which is even if you have a physical pathway between buildings to get to the beach, a kid might not have people in their life that can take them into that experience safely.

- It's not unusual to come across kids who live within 10 miles or 20 miles of the beach who've never been to the beach.

- CARMEN: I think they know there's an ocean out there, but they don't think it's for them.

A lot of people in the county live maybe 15 miles away, or even people in the city live five miles away, and there's no public transportation at this time.

They have to figure out how to get there on their own or with family on a bike.

- ALISON: You have to have the interest.

And in order to have the interest, that means somebody has to have had to exposed you to it.

- CARMEN: A lot of our families have two adults working six days a week, and Sunday's the only day for taking care of everything else.

So they're not always able to go out and relax.

- DINA: And those are usually inner-city kids, usually kids of color.

What are those processes?

What is the history that created the context for those kids to not have easy access to the coast?

And that's what make this an environmental justice issue.

- There are a lot of historical reasons behind why certain demographics and people don't have good access to the coast.

A lot of the kids that we work with are feeling the effects of that.

So they might not even feel comfortable out on the beach because they might not see people that look like them here.

And so that's a really important part of our model, where over half of our paid staff are graduates of our program, have come through the same experiences that our kids have.

- GABRIELA: In seventh grade, I had never, ever, ever touched ocean, lakes, water ever in my life.

Snorkeling was very scary.

I threw up in my snorkel the first time.

And then I just went along with it.

- BEN: They're taking risks.

They're stepping out of their comfort zone.

But a lot of times they're leaning into it because they have supportive peers and mentors around them that are telling them they can do it.

- It was really fun for me.

It was another activity that I had never done before.

So I just wanted to keep trying and keep coming back.

And after that, I kept my grades up.

I behaved.

[chuckles] And I just attended as many trips as I could.

- For a lot of the kids that we work with, they're struggling every day with different challenges, adversity in their lives.

We work with a lot of kids affected by homelessness, foster youth, kids dealing with family disruption or even mental health and medical health issues.

And so a lot of times, they're getting messages every day about what they can't do or can't be.

And we know that through programs like this on the beach, we're really showing them a new possibility, a new world where they can invent a strength-based sense of self based on what they can do.

- With the programs that I've been involved in in terms of engaging particularly young people of color in going to the beach, this is going to open up new experiences for them to think about what their life possibilities are-- not just in terms of their personal pursuits of pleasure and careers, but also in terms of being good citizens and what does that mean.

As a good citizen, what are the things that I need to think about?

- BEN: On the surface, coastal and beach access looks like a nice-to-have.

For those of us privileged enough to have everything else taken care of, a day at the beach is great.

It's the cherry on top.

But what we don't realize is for a lot of the community members here, this idea of ongoing, meaningful coastal access can actually help them navigate life's challenges.

- They helped me out of a bad path.

And I see sometimes so many kids going down that path, and I'm just like, "I've been there, "and I don't want you to go down that way.

It sucks."

So this is why I keep doing this.

It's like my way of giving back to my community, or just all communities in general.

It's like, I wanna help.

I want them to feel that success that I felt.

And I want them to feel that, like--that relief of, like, "I can do better and I can get to other places, not just here."

- BEN: So I think there needs to be a lot more support for these access programs, because that's oftentimes the bridge by which we can connect the physical spaces to the communities that could most use that access.

- ♪ - ♪ ♪ - SHARA: Ocean Discovery Institute is about empowering young people from the most underserved communities to transform their lives, community, and world as ocean and conservation leaders.

- [waves crashing] - SHARA: It's all about removing barriers to access.

And that's a huge part of what Ocean Discovery does, is thinks about what are the barriers that keep kids in these communities from entering fields of science and conservation; what are the barriers that keep them from being able to explore and grow passionate about the ocean, which is such a rich environment and so part of our identity as Californians.

So one way we remove barriers to access is by providing our programs tuition free so that all of our kids can participate.

So in order to do that, we have to have substantial contributions, resources, to support the work that we do.

And today, we were just awarded from the Zable Foundation a significant contribution of a million dollars towards building a living lab.

So this is actually bringing us, you know, really close to being able to break ground at the end of this year and be able to build this ocean institute in this urban center in City Heights.

People always ask us, you know, "Why an ocean institute in an urban center?"

And I think the answer is really in our tagline.

It's "Ocean Discovery Institute, young lives transformed through science."

So if you look at that, it's really about transforming young lives.

And we use the ocean as a platform to do that because there's nothing better to engage people in science and conservation than what we have right here.

- But I think it's just that spark, as we call it, that gets ignited in these students when they're a part of, you know, being outdoors and being connected to their ocean or their natural environments, to be able to say, like, "I can really make a difference."

And seeing those transformations happen in front of you and alongside your community I think is really empowering.

Being able to take advantage of the amazing resources that are here in San Diego locally, not only, you know, this beautiful environment that you can see behind me, but there's amazing, you know, institutions, like Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and universities that are doing research, you know, that can contribute to improving our environment as well.

- SHARA: Well, the first thing I think of when I think about a coastal trail is I think about accessibility.

And an issue that we address is bringing the connection between the urban environment and the coast.

And so that's accessibility for our urban kids who normally don't get to have that interaction with the ocean even when they only live 20 minutes away to build that connection.

Well, another way of building that connection is along the coast.

And the more opportunities that you have along the coast, the more that kids and families from all over and every kind of community can actually access, connect to the ocean, learn about it, love it, and protect it.

- [waves crashing] - CARLA: Thinking about what the California Coastal Trail can mean to our students, it could be a new place of discovery for our students, for them to understand, you know, other watersheds and how they're connected or how these different ecosystems are linked to one another.

It could be a place for them to, you know, steward the environment.

And I think, you know, today, the actions that our families and our students are taking through our programs, you know, can build towards helping to support a coastal trail in the future, because they are already stewards of the environment.

So thinking about how can they connect to this bigger vision that we have for California or this coastal trail.

- ♪ - [waves crashing] - One of the biggest threats to coastal access in the next decades really is sea level rise and the effects of that, our beaches washing away.

That's gonna be one of our biggest challenges for our coastal communities, is really how do we navigate that while ensuring that the public still has access to these spaces.

- I sit on the board of this organization called the San Onofre Parks Foundation.

And we're watching sea level rise happening on certainly a yearly basis.

And I keep thinking that if this beach is here in 10 years, I'll be surprised.

The state now is calling it a crisis, the coastal crisis.

- MANDY: Our kneejerk reaction as sea levels rise and coastal storms increase is to arm our coast with seawalls and rock revetments, and unfortunately, that blocks the natural processes that our coasts otherwise would be taking in order to respond to our changing coastal conditions, with climate change and sea level rise.

- And those cities that have critical facilities and housing on their coast are really gonna feel it.

We do have some of that.

We have some of our critical city facilities on the coast.

They may have to move.

At a certain point, you can't guard it with a wall.

The ocean's gonna come and get it.

- GRAHAM: You have something that's known as the coastal squeeze, where you're developing all along the coastline.

And with that hard structure, you're blocking the natural transport of sediment.

And that transport of sediment is what helps the beaches to nourish and maintain themselves.

You all of a sudden have a situation where beaches are disappearing.

- Parts of Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, certainly Los Angeles County, people are right up on the ocean, and when the ocean's coming, it's gonna take out those houses.

It's already taking out the highway.

- JON: If you look at some of the projections for climate change and sea level rise, we could lose a third or more of our beaches.

That means we could also lose a third or more of our surf breaks.

- MANDY: By and large, Californians want to preserve their public beaches into the future.

And sometimes that's at odds with residential homeowners who don't wanna be told they might have to move one day.

- DINA: If you don't do manage and retreat, you're gonna lose it anyway, so let's think about it.

A lot of people think putting up rocks or armoring the coast is going to be the resolution.

At some point, that actually hurts your ability to save your facilities.

It's gonna come down.

So maybe not tomorrow or in ten years, but it's gonna come down.

So we have to think of the future in all of these things we do.

- JON: The question is, can we adapt to some of these big challenges?

Can we adapt to the need to change how we manage our human affairs on the coast?

Our roads, our train lines, our hotels and motels, our private residences, our campgrounds?

Can we figure out ways to equitably change?

Can we reduce our carbon emissions so that sea level rise is not as dramatic as these worst-case scenarios, which assume that everything goes on as business as usual?

I think it's clear that, you know, on all these levels, business as usual cannot continue if we want to protect the California coastal environment and ecosystems and ensure access for all.

- GRAHAM: Everybody is going to have to come to terms with the fact that in the coming years, we're all going to have to let go of things that we love, whether that's private property or that's public coastal commons.

So these are very, very difficult questions.

- JON: This is some of the most valuable real estate in the world, not just in terms of the financial value of that real estate, but the... emotional, the cultural, the historical, the family value.

Our identity as Californians, the coast is part of that, even if we don't live by the coast.

- BEN: The whole concept of sea level rise, it's really difficult for someone to understand if they don't have a connection to the beaches and these areas that will be affected by it.

But once they can see for themselves that this beach in fact will be greatly diminished or even lost, that then moves something inside of them to want to make a difference and to act.

- JON: I don't think the coast is going away.

But it's changing.

And it's going to change dramatically.

And how we as Californians deal with that is going to determine the future of coastal environments and coastal access.

- ♪ - ♪ ♪ ♪ - Whenever I walk across the bridge, I think of all the childhood times I had playing on the beach, swimming in Pudding Creek, and being able to climb on the trestle.

As we look west, you can see the main Pudding Creek beach, as well as a trail system that goes along the bluffs.

We're standing on the Wesley Chesbrough Pudding Creek Trestle, which is in the southern portion of MacKerricher State Park.

The trestle was created during the logging era, when there was a train trestle put in to allow trains carrying logs from the Ten Mile watershed to go all the way to the mill in the center of town.

That train was in place from 1917 until 1949, when it was converted into a road to haul logs via logging trucks.

The trail that we're standing on is, uh, pedestrian and bicycle access only.

But to the locals, it was known as the haul road because of the historic use with the logging trucks.

And even on the weekends, when it was closed down for logging trucks, the company allowed locals to drive up and down the road to get access to the beach, the good surfing spots, the great areas to go fishing along the coast.

- ♪ - LOREN: After the use by the logging company, the trestle itself was chained off and boarded off because it was unsafe for people to be on it.

And it remained that way until State Parks was able to receive funding to do a restoration project and transform this old logging trestle into a great recreational opportunity for the town.

The trestle was a great addition because it allowed people to be able to access the town of Fort Bragg without having to go alongside the highway.

And they could safely access it through this pedestrian/ bicycle-only trestle.

I grew up in this area just north of Fort Bragg in the small community of Cleone, California.

When we rode our bike, we'd be able to come all the way down the logging road.

But once we got to the trestle, we'd have to get onto Highway 1 and cross the Pudding Creek Bridge with vehicle traffic, which was...the most dangerous part of the whole trip.

We were always cautious and took a big sigh of relief once you got to the other side of the bridge.

- ♪ - LOREN: This is the most used trail in the Mendocino County.

The Fort Bragg City Trail has recently done a survey on holiday weekends to get as many as 12,000 people per day using the trail--more people than in the town of Fort Bragg.

This trail has a little bit of something for everyone.

We've got the beautiful white sand beaches of Pudding Creek and Virgin Creek.

We've got the lookouts, the amazing fishing and diving opportunities off of Laguna Point.

Black sand beaches north to the Ten Mile Beach.

And then from there, over three miles of unspoiled beaches that you can walk all the way to the Ten Mile River mouth.

And then at the very south end of the park is the world-famous Glass Beach, which was once the town dump, and the wave action has created all the broken glass into jewels of polished glass.

Glass Beach is the number-one attraction for the city of Fort Bragg.

People do come from all around the world.

It's listed in the World's Top 10 Beaches regularly.

It's a very popular attraction.

- ♪ - LOREN: It is pupping season for the harbor seals, so, a lot of times, people who get lucky on a day can go out there and actually see newborn harbor seals on the rocks.

- ♪ - Three days ago, I counted 120 adults out here and 25 pups.

That was the most I've seen this pupping season out there.

The most we've ever counted on one confirmed sighting was 54 pups.

That was three years ago.

But there were 54 pups on the beach here taking up all three beaches in the rookery.

- I think that's why it's so critical to have you and the volunteers out here keeping an eye on it and making sure we let the public know what the situation is.

- It used to be that we were--I felt like mostly what we did was protect the seals from the public.

Now it's the-- people have got it.

I mean, there's not as many dogs off leash as there used to be.

There's not as many fishermen that insist on fishing in the rookery.

Why anybody would want to, I don't know.

Uh, there's lots of people interested from all over the world that come through here, you talk to them.

I even know how to pronounce "seal" in German in now.

It's a great space to be in and spend a few quiet hours, you know?

- Right.

- It's my zen time out here.

- BOTH: [chuckling] - LOREN: Not a better office in the world.

- ♪ - ♪ - SARAH: Well, all parts of the California Coastal Trail are special and unique.

The Monterey Bay section of the coastal trail is particularly special and unique because the Monterey Bay itself is such an amazing ecological feature.

And it creates such a splendid backdrop for this trail that hugs the entire edge of the bay.

- [waves crashing] - LEON: I was born and raised in Monterey.

This has been my home.

I represented this area in the Congress.

I've traveled all over the world with presidents, and traveled when I was, you know, secretary of defense and in the CIA.

And we always felt that this is, you know, one of the most beautiful areas on the face of the earth.

- SARAH: The other thing about Monterey is that it's such a draw for the public anyway.

You've got historic Cannery Row, made famous, obviously, by John Steinbeck's book of the same name.

You've got the world-class Monterey Aquarium.

- We're a small city of 28,000 people.

But on any given day, we'll have 100,000 to 150,000 people here, tourists and people who work.

We have a symphony, two wharves, a downtown, a conference center.

It's really kind of amazing.

It's, what?

"The Little Engine That Could"?

[laughs] The little city that could?

- SARAH: And millions and millions of visitors come to Monterey every year to experience this area.

They may not know when they get here that the third defining physical feature of the bay itself is the trail that connects all of the communities and all of the natural areas around the bay.

It will become immediately apparent to you that you can't go anywhere on the coast of Monterey along the bay without using some part of the trail.

It really is the dominant geographic feature here in the landscape.

- LEON: It really made a lot of sense to have a trail that was there for people to enjoy.

Uh, the ocean is so much a part of our life, that we really wanted to provide a recreational trail that would allow people to bike and to walk, and to be able to look out on the Monterey Bay.

- SARAH: So when people come to Monterey and they go for a walk or a jog, or they ride their bike on the trail, they just take it for granted.

It's so obviously wonderful that I think most people just assume that it was in the plans all along, like Central Park in New York.

But that absolutely is not the case.

And if it weren't for a very specific twist of fate, what you would be looking at here today is a wall of high-rise luxury condominiums and hotels.

And it goes back to 1879, when Southern Pacific Railroad had the right of way for train tracks that ran along the edge of the bay.

That was back in the days when railroads really were a dominant economic engine and a dominant political force in this area.

- [train chugging] - CLYDE: At one time, trains came down from San Francisco, passenger trains.

But also, trains came through here, where they mined sand.

So all this pristine, beautiful white sand got hauled onto the train.

- [train chugging] - CLYDE: Kind of the urban folklore is that many beaches in Hawaii, which is volcanic, have beautiful white sand compliments of the Monterey Peninsula.

- SARAH: But over the years, the rail line became less and less useful.

And then they sent their workers down to just start pulling up the tracks.

And so there was a big meeting in San Francisco, and Southern Pacific told the Coastal Commission very clearly, "You don't understand.

"We're not in the railroad business anymore, "we're in the real estate business.

And that's our land, and we plan to develop it."

So we went to court, and the court agreed with us.

The Coastal Commission won.

The very first test case nationally for the Coastal Zone Management Act.

- GARY: Back in the '70s, once the right of way was acquired, we were interested in trails, and at that time, there was a discussion nationwide about converting old railroad right-of-ways to trails.

- [whirring] - GARY: We were able to get from Fisherman's Wharf by the Custom House right out to the end here at Pacific Grove at Lover's Point.

Then the issue was, you know, removal of the tracks and moving ahead with the development of the trail.

- When the trail was first purchased, one of the ideas was the right-of-way could be used for some kind of mass modal system.

The people of Monterey said, "Please don't run a train through our window to the bay on our rec trail."

- And then, within a couple years, their portion of the trail was implemented through Cannery Row and back through to the wharf.

- I think the reason it has been so successful is because it's such a spectacular idea.

You'd have to be crazy or a railroad executive to think that a better plan for this landscape would be hotels and high-rises.

People love it, they relate to it, they use it.

It's just a winner all the way around.

- LEON: As somebody who's had a chance to walk part of the Appalachian Trail, and also to walk in the Sierras, I think the ability to able to walk a trail 1,200 miles of the most beautiful coastline in the world is a remarkable goal.

Giving people that opportunity along the California Trail is in many ways a fulfillment of what life is all about, to be able to understand that as human beings, we have a responsibility to ensure that that beauty is protected.

- [waves lapping] - It's really a common thing to meet people, especially young people, that consider themselves activists.

- ♪ - JON: With climate change and with sea level rise, we are going to really face serious challenges of ensuring both that the coast is protected as an environment and an ecosystem and that we continue to ensure there is access.

Those are already wicked problems.

And they can't be solved by one agency.

- It's so easy for individuals to feel like they don't matter, like they'll never be able to effect change.

But I think the power of organizations is to provide the tools for everyday individuals to come and get involved, and be a part of a community that is effecting real change right in their own backyard.

- LUCAS: There's a lot of really serious pollution issues.

We believe it's not just the work of environmental experts or scientists, but really residents who live here, whose health is impacted by the pollution here, who should be fighting for that change.

- Even a little action can have a huge ripple effect.

- LUCAS: That's the way change happens.

It's the way change has happened since long before the Coastal Act, and will continue as far as we can see it, you know, through the grassroots activism of ordinary people getting involved.

- DINA: We're seeing more and more mobilization on the citizen level, and it's with the kids.

It's the kids whose futures are threatened here.

So they have more investment than anybody.

- BEN: Every year we take groups of kids up to Sacramento for Ocean Day, as well as Parks Advocacy Day.

And oftentimes their voices are the most powerful because they're coming at it from the excitement of knowing what it feels like to be out here.

You can see how much it moves them when they're speaking to the Coastal Commission, for instance, and the commissioners sit up a little straighter in their chair, because all of a sudden, they're hearing this very powerful story about what coastal access can really do in terms of supporting a critical need, like youth development or youth education.

- ALISON: We hope that, in terms of all these programs-- that it is opening the eyes of the kids to look at the ecosystem and the social system in new ways.

- LUCAS: We've brought, over the years, hundreds of young people from local high schools out here to do clean-ups.

And we brought people out to some of the public meetings.

We're doing focus groups, um, in Spanish and Mixteco, to get people involved.

Now, in this generation, I think you're seeing maybe a new generation of environmental justice activists who are rooted in working-class communities, immigrant communities, communities of color who are really taking ownership of the environmental movement and bringing that grassroots activism to a new level, to reach some new dimensions that maybe weren't always talked about before.

- DINA: Communities of color have been doing environmental activism in their own kinds of ways that don't get recognized by mainstream white environmentalist movements.

- JON: The diversity of Californians that supports protecting the coast, spending money on protecting the coast, providing access, those are the voters of now and the future who will ensure that the mission of Californians, embodied in the California Coastal Act, survives and thrives into the future.

- Can't win every battle, but people try to win battles for coastal access, to not allow the beach to be scooped up by private interest or people with more means.

And that's benefit for all Californians.

- There is a tendency, I think, sometimes for us to think we can kind of plan from the top down for environmental restoration.

But you really have to do things from the bottom up and talk to the people that live here about what's going on in our own community.

- GRAHAM: Your actions matter, and you'll never, ever know, you'll never be able to calculate your impact on the community around you.

So just assume that what you do is being seen.

Assume that what you do counts.

- ♪ ♪ ♪ - [sizzling] - WOMAN: Vacation for me is usually an escape from work.

But this time, I wanted something more.

- ♪ - [waves crashing] - [seagulls squawking] - ♪