Monterey Bay Climate Adaptation Action Network

04/23/2026

🌊 A historic first for the Monterey Bay area!
We are so incredibly proud to share photos from the first in-person gathering of the MBCAAN Indigenous Youth Council -  Young Voices of the Land–Wave One.
Youth from various Tribal groups across the region came together to connect and discuss climate resilience in Monterey Bay.

Our time together included: 🐠 A behind-the-scenes tour of the
🌿 A beautiful evening nature walk at the Elkhorn Slough Reserve, one of California’s largest coastal salt marshes.
🫂And lastly, a ceremonial closing circle at Carmel River State Beach

From this gathering, the youth are exploring how they will carry forward their part in stewardship of the lands and waters. We all walked away with a profound appreciation for Monterey Bay’s magnificent lands, wildlife, and waters. Most importantly, this gathering sparked incredible ideas on how to weave indigenous perspectives into our ongoing coastal resilience work. 🌎✨

The future of our coast is in great hands! 🙌
 

04/15/2026

Earth Month is in full swing, and our amazing MBCAAN partners are hosting a massive lineup of fun, educational, and action-packed events across the region. Whether you want to learn about resilience, get your hands dirty at a park cleanup, or just enjoy some live music and community vibes, there is something for everyone!

Check out the incredible schedule below and mark your calendars:
📅 THE EARTH MONTH LINEUP * TODAY, April 15: 🥳 Regeneración’s 10th Anniversary Open House! (4-6 PM @ Plaza Vigil, Watsonville) Enjoy refreshments, learn about local climate solutions, check out e-bikes with Ecology Action, and enter a free drawing!
    •    April 16: 🧊 Food Cube Making Party (3-7 PM @ Somos Watsonville) Join SCCAN and the City of Watsonville to learn about coastal threats and the Make Polluters Pay campaign.
    •    April 17: 🌱 Protecting Our Planet Popup (12-3 PM @ Plaza Vigil, Watsonville) Connect with Pájaro Valley Climate Action and Regeneración.
    •    April 18: 🗑️ Ensen Community Park Clean-up Join Big Sur Land Trust to get some fresh air, meet neighbors, and spruce up the park!
    •    April 18: 🎉 2026 Santa Cruz Earth Day Celebration (11:30 AM - 4 PM @ Downtown SC) Live music, eco-vendors, face painting, flower crowns, and more!
    •    April 19: 🖼️ Cyanotype Printing Workshop (1-4 PM @ MILPA Office, Watsonville) Get creative with paper and fabric sun-printing alongside the MILPA team!
    •    April 22: 💻 Future Careers Expo: Tech & Sustainability (4-6 PM @ Digital NEST, Watsonville) Explore exciting green career paths.
    •    April 24: 🗣️ CSUMB Library Speaker Series (5-7 PM @ CSUMB) Join Dr. Hélène Benveniste for a fascinating talk on climate migration.
    •    May 9: 🌿 Act for Antonelli Clean-up (9 AM - 1:30 PM @ Antonelli Pond, SC) Help the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County pull invasive English Ivy and pick up trash!
Tap the link in our bio or go to the partners page on MBCAAN.org to get all the details, register for events, and learn more! Let’s make this Earth Month our best one yet. 🌱✨

04/13/2026

Congratulations to Climate Resilient Monterey Bay’s first graduating cohort of the Pajaro Valley Climate Corps program at Watsonville Wetlands Watch! Staff had the honor of presenting them with their well-deserved certificates of completion. 📜✨

These interns have been putting in some serious hard work out in the field. From getting practical experience with fieldwork equipment and tools 🛠️, to bringing the heat using a flamethrower to burn invasive poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) seedlings at Struve Slough 🔥, these interns are well equipped to restore and preserve our local wetlands!

One site they focused on is College Lake, working hard to clear out the invasive water primrose (Ludwigia peploides). 🌱💪

Thank you to this amazing crew for your dedication to protecting and restoring our local habitats! 🦆💚

04/01/2026

So grateful for in-person connections! 🌊✨ Last month, our two NOAA Climate Resilience fellows presented their work for the Climate Resilient Monterey Bay initiative at NOAA’s Oakland office.

We are so impressed by the incredible work Lauryn Cummins and Paige Siegel are doing as part of this work. Be sure to explore their latest milestones:

💻 The brand new MBCAAN.org website (complete with 1-page summaries for all 25 projects and social links!)
🗺️ An interactive Story Map detailing the CRMB Regional Monitoring Program and 10 amazing flood risk reduction projects.

Can’t wait to watch and share what these two continue to accomplish through this grant! 👏💙

🔗 Links to the website and Story Map in our bio!

04/01/2026

03/30/2026

We learned so much at the MBCAAN quarterly meeting at the beautiful Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve! 🌊 While our comfort level using social media for communications varies, our mission is the same:

🔬 Translate complex science into accessible formats
🌍 Reach new audiences
🎨 Tell better stories through infographics, videos, and maps
🧠 Understand the psychology and strategy behind effective messaging

Here’s to leveling up our science communication! You can find the last few Climate Resilient Monterey Bay brochures at the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve✨

Thank you so much to our co-host, Elkhorn Slough Reserve and Elkhorn Slough Foundation!

Elkhorn Slough Foundation

03/27/2026

Out in the field for ! 💙California Marine Sanctuary Foundationndation and NOAA staff recently visited Glen Deven Ranch with Big Sur Land TrustTrust to discuss critical “good fire” land stewardship. 🔥

For our Glen Deven Ranch Project, Big Sur Land Trustst is working with Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association and Resource Conservation District of Monterey County.

🔗To learn more, check our projects page on MBCAAN.org linked in our bio.

03/25/2026

What a fantastic day at the Natural Sciences Career and Internship Fair at CSUMB! 🎉

The Climate Resilient Monterey Bay team was thrilled to support this incredible event funded in part by the NOAA grant. We had the best time connecting with so many passionate students who are eager to make a difference in our community and environment. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our table to chat and all the partners that came out to table, the future of coastal resilience is looking bright! 🌊🌿✨



Thank you to all the amazing organizations that came out and are here pictured

02/26/2026

Restoring resilience isn’t always a walk in the park…sometimes it’s a crawl through the brush. 🪵

For our forestry professionals Open Space Trust (POST), marking trees in San Vicente Redwoods is no easy task, creating a game of Where’s Waldo. Can you spot our partners?🔎

During the 2020 CZU Fire, this redwood forest burned and decades of fuels on the ground really cooked the tree trunks, damaging them significantly. The redwoods will eventually rebound, but the understory has become too thick with dead, less fire-resistant trees and fire-following scrub that took advantage of an open canopy.

By implementing a forest resilience project across 462 acres through California Marine Sanctuary Foundation Climate Resilient Monterey Bay project area, the San Vicente Redwoods Conservation Partners are getting ready for a busy summer season where they’ll nudge the redwood forest along its path towards old-growth conditions by removing the wildfire-damaged trees that are crowding our healthy redwoods. Our foresters at Hamey Woods are getting ready for our contractors by assessing each tree in the project area to determine if it should be removed or kept in place to create the foundation for a future healthy forest. Moving through this dense post-fire understory is tough but rewarding work.🌲 🕵️‍♀️

02/24/2026

Big news from Sacramento! 📢🌱

The Pajaro Estuary Restoration project is gaining statewide attention! Eric Lombardo from the Land Trust of Santa Cruz CountyLand Trust of Santa Cruz County recently shared the Land Trust’s plan to restore coastal wetland habitat at California’s first-ever Nature-Based Solutions Summit.

The communities surrounding the Pajaro River have experienced increased flooding and levee breaches in recent years. The Land Trust of Santa Cruz County protected 247 acres at Beach Ranch, and is restoring the flood prone farmland acres into a climate resilient landscape in collaboration with the Monterey Bay Climate Adaptation Action Network.

Together, we are using land protection and restoration to create living shorelines that will protect against future floods with our partners Central Coast Wetlands Group, The Nature Conservancy, Watsonville Wetlands Watch, and CA State Coastal Conservancy.

The restored acres will create a sponge that absorbs floodwaters, filters pollutants, and locks away carbon, protecting people and farmland at the heart of Santa Cruz County’s agricultural region.

We are grateful to do this work thanks to a supportive network from politicians at the state and local level, to state funders, private funders, government agencies, local working land businesses, the agricultural community, and individual donors to help make this project happen!

California Marine Sanctuary Foundation