California beach dunes once teemed with plants and birds.
Along a postcard stretch of Southern California, beneath the geologic grandeur of Point Dume, Sara Cuadra cradled a rake and prodded what seemed like just a patch of white sand.
To the untrained eye, this was just another pretty spot in Malibu — a popular site for film shoots and Instagrams, body surfing and long walks by the sea. But here among the bluffs of Westward Beach, where the shoreline has quietly eroded with each passing year, Cuadra has spent weeks tending, square foot by square foot, a forgotten ecosystem that has long since been destroyed.
In a land of beach volleyball, umbrellas and picnics on the sand, it’s easy to forget the beach itself used to be a wild place. Coastal dunes once unfurled along the shore, their crests and curves teeming with plants, birds and more bugs than you could imagine. California, in fact, once boasted some of the most biodiverse beaches in the world. But for almost a century, these sandy hills have been flattened and paved over — erased to make room for ever more people seeking to live and play by the sea.
Now, with the looming threat of sea level rise and a state desperate for solutions, conservationists and a growing movement of researchers say restoring these dunes could provide a much-needed buffer from the water. These overlooked features of the coast could help buy communities a bit more time — before the ocean pushes inland and reclaims the land.
