By Julie Cart/CALmatters
In what is likely Barack Obama’s final environmental action before Donald Trump moves into the White House, the president has just expanded the existing California Coastal National Monument — adding a mix of lighthouses, rocky outcroppings, stands of redwoods and significant Native American grounds that will be knitted into the existing federal preserve on and off the coast from Humboldt County to Orange County.
The move was applauded by environmentalists who feel a greater urgency to shore up conservation gains before the Obama administration is ushered out. Given the general anti-environmental tenor in Congress, and the Trump administration’s uncertain and unexpressed view on conservation issues, some groups saw the announcement as important not so much because it afforded the California sites protection from encroaching development, but because those areas would be spared from a questionable future.
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