The Trust for Public Land’s memorial to Patricia Strickland could have been installed at any of the dozens of places across California she helped to protect. But it seemed fitting to choose the Mendocino County coastal bluffs that she worked to con- serve in the last year of her too- short life, even as she was locked in a final battle with cancer. Strickland—everyone at TPL
called her Trish—was 52 and had worked at TPL for a dozen years, first as a legal assistant and later as a project manager. She was known for her personal warmth and optimism and her dog-with-a-bone tenacity when faced with any obstacle to a project’s progress. As a project manager, Trish helped protect soaring peaks
and flowery meadows across the Sierra Nevada. But her efforts to bring TPL’s work to her beloved Northern California coast capped her legacy. She helped create Arcata’s community forest (see page 40), then quickly turned her attention to three miles
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of surf-pounded coastal bluffs outside the town of Point Arena. When Trish led potential funders on tours of the land, every one of them left convinced that it simply had to be protected for its scenic nature, importance to wildlife, and value for recreation. Bordered by the coastal highway, the property was eminently developable. But, as Trish argued, conservation of the land by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) could be a critical first step in linking up 3,700 acres of pro- tected open space along ten miles of coastline and laying a new section of the California Coastal Trail. Pulling together funding from California’s State Coastal
Conservancy, the BLM (through the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund), and private donors, Trish helped guar- antee the success of the project’s first phase before she passed away in October. A second phase is now listed as a high priority in President Obama’s proposed 2013 budget. “With the same mighty force of will with which she
inhabited her life, we imagine her spirit living on and gracing the wild bluffs of the North Coast,” Trish’s longtime supervisor, Tily Shue, wrote to TPL staff last fall. This spring a plaque in Trish’s memory will be placed along