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.
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"The book gives a shoreline a view of the history of great wave riders and their evolution from surfers to activists. It's also a first-hand account of battles won and lost against poachers, politicians, private companies and government agencies. Wild Sea is a fantastic read for all ages." --Imperial Beach Patch
"In Wild Sea, Serge Dedina tells the true story of a wondrous world that's become his life's work. Dedina's eloquent narrative leads us on a harrowing journey through the complex and evolving realities of a threatened and forgotten land." --Drew Kampion, author of The Way of the Surfer: Living It 1935 to Tomorrow
"From San Juanico Bight to the HBO series "John from Cincinnati", Serge Dedina details the trials and tribulations of a desert coast under assault by man and nature, from land and sea." --Benjamin Marcus, former editor for Surfer magazine and author of Surfing USA! An Illustrated History of the Coolest Sport of All Time
From the Author
This book is designed to offer a glimpse into the battles we have faced in attempting to conserve the best of our coastal heritage in both California and Baja California. My aim is to document the campaigns that I have been involved with to preserve the last willd coastline and marine wildlife of the Californias and to provide a look at the roots of the binational coastal culture of the Californias.
I have not written a neutral academic monograph on coastal management. Rather I provide a passionate and unapologetic defense of our coastal heritage of the Californias. Many of these stories were written in the midst of campaigning to provide a sense of urgency to the public about the fate of our coast. Few people realize how close we came to losing important pieces of the coastline of the Californias to badly planned and doomed to fail development.
I also wanted to portray the reality of the areas that I work and the people who I have worked with and who influenced my own activism including TJ punks, Mexican wrestlers and the surfers who pioneered big waves at the Tijuana Sloughs.
This is meant to be a fun book for anyone who loves the coast--especially those of us with lives dedicated to the sea in California and Baja California.
Serge Dedina is the co-founder and Executive Director of WiLDCOAST/COSTASALVAjE, an international organization that conserves coastal and marine ecosystems and wildlife.
Since 1980, Serge Dedina has dedicated most of his time to protecting the coastal wildlands of the Californias. He has successfully worked with fishing communities and grassroots organizations on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border to preserve more than 1.8 million acres of globally significant coastal and marine habitats.
Serge was instrumental in the development of two national parks along Baja's Sea of Cortez coastline and a research and educational center in Magdalena Bay. He also initiated an international campaign that successfully stopped the Mitsubishi Corporation from destroying San Ignacio Lagoon--the world's last undeveloped gray whale lagoon.
The Surf Industry Manufacturer's Association named Serge the "Environmentalist of the Year" in 2003 for his work to protect the coastline of Baja California. In 2009 he received the San Diego Zoological Society's Conservation Medal. The California Coastal Commission and Sunset Magazine awarded Serge the "Coastal Hero" award in 2009 in recognition of his conservation work. He is also a member of the Sweetwater Union High School District Hall of Fame.
The Wall Street Journal, PBS, The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, New York Times, CNN, CBS-News, USA-Today, the Washington Post, The Economist, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, and the San Diego Union-Tribune have reported on Serge's conservation activities.
Serge has published articles on the environment and surfing in the Los Angeles Times, Grist, VoiceofSanDiego.org, San Diego News Network, Surfline, The Surfer's Journal, San Diego Union-Tribune, The Surfer's Path, Journal of Borderlands Studies, and California Coast and Ocean. He writes a weekly column, Southwest Surf, on surfing and the coastal environment for Imperial Beach Patch and Coronado Patch, owned by AOL.
He holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Texas at Austin. He received his Master's degree in Geography from the University of Wisconsin and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of California-San Diego.
An avid surfer, Serge is a former State of California Ocean Lifeguard. He has lived, surfed, worked and studied in El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, Spain, England, France and Morocco. Serge currently lives in his hometown of Imperial Beach with his wife Emily and sons Israel and Daniel.
