Wild Sea

by Dedina, Serge

• ISBN13: 9780816529032
• ISBN10: 0816529035
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-02-01
• Publisher: Univ of Arizona Pr

Summary

Many people have lamented the pollution and outright loss of beaches along the coasts of California and Mexico, but very few people have fought on behalf of beaches as hard--or as successfully--as Serge Dedina. Whether taking on an international conglomerate or tackling a state transportation agency, Dedina is truly an eco-warrior. In this sparkling collection of articles, many written for popular magazines, Dedina tells the stories as only an insider could. He writes with a firm grasp of facts along with an advocate's passion and outrage. Sprinkled with just the right mix of humor and surf lingo, Dedina's writing is weapons grade--surfer speak for totally awesome. Dedina grew up in Imperial Beach, California, just north of the Mexican border, and he feels equally at home in Mexico and the States. An expert on gray whales, he eloquently describes the fight he helped to lead against the Mitsubishi Corporation, whose plan to build a salt-processing plant in the San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja California would have destroyed the world's last undeveloped gray whale lagoon. With similar fervor, Dedina describes helping to construct the unlikely coalition that succeeded in defeating a proposed toll road that would have decimated a legendary California surf spot. In between, he writes about the first surfers in Baja, the Great Baja Land Rush of the 1990s, Tijuana's punk music scene, the pop-culture wrestling phenomenon lucha libre, the reasons why ocean pollution must be stopped, and the way HBO took over his hometown. Anyone interested in what's happening to our natural places or just yearning to read about someone really making a difference in the world will find this a book worth sinking their teeth into.

Table of Contents

List of Maps	p. vii
List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Abbreviations	p. xiii
Introduction: Conflict and Conservation on the Coast of the Californias	p. 1
The Baja California Peninsula
The First Surfers in Baja California	p. 21
Magdalena Bay's People of the Mangroves	p. 23
How Saving Whales Advances Democracy	p. 30
Protecting Mexico's Natural Heritage	p. 33
Life for the Sea: Fishermen and Surfers in Baja California	p. 36
The Baja California Land Rush	p. 40
The U.S.-Mexico Border
Searching for Cartolandia	p. 51
Lucha Libre: Wrestling for Life in Tijuana	p. 53
Viva Luis! Punk Rock and Politics on the Border	p. 56
Waiting for the Border Watchers	p. 58
Terminal with Extreme Prejudice: Fighting Chevron-Texaco's Invasion of the Coronado Islands	p. 60
Brown Water on the Border	p. 65
Hasta la Bye Bye to Bajagua	p. 68
Southern California
Watermen: Tales of the Tijuana Sloughs	p. 73
Indian Summer: A Surfer's Guide to the Fall	p. 83
Saving the Seals of La Jolla	p. 85
The New Rockford Files Goes Blue	p. 88
The O.C. Meets South Park at the ASR	p. 91
From Fast Times to David Milch: A Brief Cultural History of San Diego	p. 95
HBO Invades Dogtown in Imperial Beach	p. 97
Saving Trestles, Part I: Surfing with Schwarzenegger	p. 101
Saving Trestles, Part II: Five Lessons from Big Wednesday	p. 106
Saving Trestles, Part III: Rumble in Del Mar	p. 113
Surfing Can Change the World	p. 115
Epilogue: Reclaiming the Coast	p. 117
Glossary	p. 131
Notes	p. 135
Bibliography	p. 141
Index	p. 145
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