Image: Surfrider Foundation
If you could ask every person in the United States if they love the beach, they would say yes.
I’ve never met a person who doesn’t like the beach.
Beaches are where we connect to the ocean.
Beaches are where we go, as frequently as possible, to recreate and unplug from modern life.
Beaches are our open spaces and are not for sale.
At Surfrider, we believe beach access is a universal right. We work to secure universal, low-impact beach access for all people. Our members live, work, visit, and recreate on and near the world’s beaches, and are impacted by beach access limitations. Our complete stance on this issue is here.
Preserving beach access is also a core part of Surfrider’s DNA–we’ve been doing it since our inception. In California alone, we are fighting this issue in Dana Point, Santa Barbara, Malibu and Solana Beach. Then there was the story Kelly Slater engaged with last year, when a surfer in Chicago was arrested for surfing.
The most recent story involves billionaire Vinod Khosla.
The Atlantic has dubbed it, “Surfers Battle Billionaire for the Beach.”
There is a common thread through all of these stories and that thread is access to public, open spaces.
No one cares when a billionaire buys a building on Central Park West. We would become involved, we’d become activists, if they then closed off access to Central Park.
Beaches, like public parks and other types of public open spaces, should never have access restricted.
We call on every coastal resident, surfer, fisherman, kayaker and beach lover to watch this issue and find the time and place to engage with it.
This article was originally published on Jim Moriarty’s blog.
