Eco-Victories, Yesterday and Tomorrow

With Earth Day upon us, The Santa Barbara Independent is taking a look at monumental preservation projects of the past and future. In our two-pronged feature, longtime environmental movement mastermind — and founding director of the Community Environmental Council, which hosts the 43rd annual Earth Day festival at Alameda Park this weekend — Paul Relis runs down a legacy of preserving agriculture in Carpinteria, and our Senior Editor Matt Kettmann takes a deeper look at the end and new beginning of Ocean Meadows Golf Course in Goleta, which will one day be home to public trails and wetland wonderlands rather than tee boxes and sand traps.

• Ocean Meadows Is Dead! Long Live Ocean Meadows!: Saying good-bye to the golf course, and hello to a nature preserve. — Matt Kettmann

• Flower Power: Carpinteria Valley’s agriculture was preserved in the wake of the 1969 oil spill. — Paul Relis