San Mateo County, California

The Ano Nuevo State Reserve in San Mateo County is home to the largest breeding colony of elephant seals in the world.

San Mateo County is preserving much of the Santa Cruz Mountains as well as the coastal farmlands and shorelines stretching west in the Pacific Ocean. This accomplishment is particularly remarkable since the eastern third of San Mateo County is home to San Francisco International Airport and several cities in the San Francisco Bay metro area. Much of credit goes to County voters who agreed to tax themselves for open space preservation. But individual citizens and non-profit organizations has also been instrumental in creating the network of preserves and state parks that make southwestern San Mateo County seem like it’s 200 rather than 20 miles south of San Francisco.

In 1972, the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District was formed to protect lands in northern and western Santa Clara County and the northernmost tip of Santa Cruz County as well as San Mateo County. Through this approval, the voters formed a special district primarily funded by a dedicated portion of property tax. The District typically acquires land in fee and manages these lands as nature preserves accessible to the public. The District’s 25 preserves protect 46,835 acres, almost entirely in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties along the ridges and canyons of the Santa Cruz Mountains. In San Mateo County, Purisima Creek Redwoods, with 3,120 acres, is the second-largest District preserve, featuring 21 miles of hiking trails through terrain that ranges from fern-covered canyons shaded by giant redwoods to hardwood forests and coastal scrub vantage points that offer glimpses of Half Moon Bay.

Giant green anemone lolls in a tidepool at San Mateo County’s Fitzgerald Marine Reserve.

The Purisima Creek Redwoods Preserve was made possible by a $2-million gift from the Save-the-Redwoods League, a non-profit organization, formed in 1920, that has participated in the preservation of over 165,000 acres throughout California. The League was also instrumental for acquisition of land for a future state park near Ano Nuevo State Reserve in southwestern San Mateo County. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Ano Nuevo Reserve each year to view sea lions and the largest mainland breeding colony of northern elephant seals in the world.

The Peninsula Open Space Trust generated over $200 million in four years, preserving 17,000 acres of land in San Mateo County including Whalers Cove next to the historic Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

San Mateo County features six state beaches, three state parks and the Pigeon Point State Historic Park which surrounds the tallest operating lighthouse on the West Coast, built in 1872. The 2,800-acre Portola Redwoods State Park abuts the County’s 8,000-acre Pescadero Creek Park. The Pescadero Park site was originally acquired from the Santa Cruz Lumber Company in 1971 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the creation of a lake. Environmentalists and growth-control advocates saw the proposed increase in water supply as a threat to western San Mateo County and succeeded in defeating the dam project. Although much of the land in Pescadero Park was logged as recently as the 1960s, old-growth redwoods in the Heritage Grove portion of the park are reputed to be the largest in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Pescadero Creek Park is just one of 18 parks provided by San Mateo County. Other standouts include the County’s Memorial Park, where you can swim in Pescadero Creek with old-growth redwoods looming overhead, and Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, where you can explore tidepools teaming with anemone, seastars, coral, crabs and mollusks in a variety of shapes and colors.

The Coastside Trust acquired easements along an abandoned railroad right of way, creating this multi-use trail on the bluffs of Half Moon Bay in San Mateo County.

In addition to the Save-the-Redwoods League, other land trusts have been hard at work in San Mateo County. Since its formation in 1977, the Peninsula Open Space Trust, or POST, has saved almost 60,000 acres in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties with gifts and purchases of land or easements. POST’s current campaign, Saving the Endangered Coast, raised over $200 million between 2001 and 2005 and has already saved 17,000 acres of land in 25 properties in San Mateo County. POST’s acquisition of Whaler’s Cove protected a hidden beach and preserved a fitting setting for the Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

In addition to other organizations that operate over larger areas, the Coastside Land Trust, originally known as the Half Moon Bay Open Space Trust, specializes in the protection of land on the coast of San Mateo County. The Trust acquired conservation easements along key segments of a historic railroad right of way, creating the paved Coastside multi-use trail that serves as a link in the 1000-mile California Coastal Trail.

Since 1958, the Greenbelt Alliance has provided expertise and support to preservation efforts throughout the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, including San Mateo County. The Alliance helped establish the Mid-Peninsula Open Space District described above and fought for expansion of the District to include the coastal areas of San Mateo County. The Greenbelt Alliance recently produced a map depicting the extraordinary accomplish that roughly half of the land in San Mateo County from the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Pacific Coast is now protected.