Photo by Floris Van Brugel. From lpfw.org.

–In April, President Trump issued an executive order instructing the Secretary of the Interior to review 27 national monuments around the country, including the Carrizo Plain National Monument in San Luis Obispo County. This review would determine whether to shrink or rescind each national monument,

The organization Los Padres Forrest Watch created a campaign Save the Carrizo Plain to help garner public support for the national monument.

In early July, the group was about to ship two boxes containing over 2,600 letters from our area to the Department of the Interior. They were able to ship the letters to a Patagonia store in Washington DC – whose store was just a few blocks from the Department of the Interior building – who loaded the boxes onto a tandem bicycle and hand-delivered the letters after a trek through the heart of our nation’s capital.

Altogether, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke received over 2.7 million comments supporting national monuments across the country. He has until Aug. 24 to make his recommendations for each national monument to the president.

For more information, visit lpfw.org.