Please email Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, Chair of the California Assembly Appropriations Committee, and express your support for Assembly Bill (AB) 1426!

AB 1426 will establish the Diablo Range as an official California conservation priority and create a Diablo Range program within the Wildlife Conservation Board.

It has been said that the road to succeeding with California’s landmark 30×30 initiative goes straight through the Diablo Range because of several factors, but none as notable as the fact that only about 25 percent of the lands within the range are protected.

The Diablo Range is 200 miles long, covers 3.5 million acres, and runs through 12 counties, with Mount Diablo in its northernmost county of Contra Costa.

The Diablo Range is incredible wildlife habitat, teeming with biodiversity. It’s home to supporting hundreds of rare and endangered species, such as the California condor.

The range also serves as a significant wildlife corridor, with established and important migratory patterns.

More than 10 million people reside in communities straddling the Diablo Range, including those within the counties of Contra Costa, Alameda, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Stanislaus, San Benito, Merced, Fresno, Monterey, Kings, San Luis Obispo, and Kern.

In addition to the rich biodiversity characteristics associated with the landscape, the range has also been identified as a new and untapped recreational resource to serve the growing Diablo-adjacent populations.

Most people aren’t aware yet of the Diablo Range and its geography or that its extent was suggested by the California Geological Survey and first established by the Board on Geographic Names on May 15, 1908. AB 1426 helps familiarize the legislature and public with the Diablo Range’s established boundaries.

The Diablo Range program is to be housed within the Wildlife Conservation Board in partnership with the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The program is intended to elevate the biological and recreation importance of the range in meeting 30×30, Outdoors for All, and associated stewardship and fire risk reduction efforts advancing in the state.

The state’s partnership in advancing this program will be critical for a host of reasons, such as helping the state meet its 30x30 goals and creating a legislative platform and runway for a Diablo Range National Monument campaign in the future. Stakeholders are in the process of laying the groundwork for such a campaign, and advancing AB 1426 will further such initiatives.