Have an incredible shot of the colourful marine life alongside the seashores and coves of Laguna Seaside?

The Laguna Bluebelt Coalition opens its annual picture contest to point out why Laguna Seaside’s shoreline is taken into account one of the spectacular in California.

This yr’s theme celebrates the continuing restoration of marine life and its seaweed forests. The picture contest, open to skilled and beginner photographers, will probably be accepting entries from June 4th to July fifth. Money prizes go to the highest winners in every class.

  • The Laguna Bluebelt Coalition will host their eleventh Annual Pictures Contest devoted to showcasing the beauties of marine life in entrance of marine sanctuaries alongside the shores of Laguna Seaside. (File picture courtesy of the Laguna Bluebelt Coalition and Michael Couffer)

  • The Laguna Bluebelt Coalition opens its eleventh Annual Photograph Contest on June 4th. The competitors is open to beginner {and professional} photographers capturing scenes alongside the Laguna Seaside shoreline. This picture by David Remington received first place within the beginner class on the 2021 competitors. (Photograph courtesy of the Laguna Bluebelt Photograph Contest)

  • The Laguna Bluebelt Coalition opens its eleventh Annual Photograph Contest on June 4th. The competitors is open to beginner {and professional} photographers capturing scenes alongside the Laguna Seaside shoreline. This is a primary place end from Alex Cowdell, who received the professional class in 2018. (Photograph courtesy of Laguna Bluebelt Coalition)

The Bluebelt Coalition is devoted to educating the general public concerning the metropolis’s seashores, that are designated as marine protected areas. Actually, the Laguna Seaside shoreline is the biggest protected space in Southern California.

Many years of overfishing has diminished a lot of California’s marine life, prompting state officers within the late Nineties to determine a community of protected areas to provide marine life an opportunity to get better.

“It is actually a contest that highlights our[marine protected areas],” stated Jinger Wallace, co-founder of the Laguna Bluebelt Coalition. “Once we go to the seashore, it is the MPAs that make it in any other case lovely; we might not have these lovely fish.”

Wallace stated because the marine preserves have been enforced — now for practically a decade — scientists have noticed a major enchancment within the quantity and dimension of fish off Laguna Seaside.

“Fishermen get the spills,” Wallace stated, explaining that lots of the fish swim off the protected rocky shoreline and bays outdoors of the protected zones and might then be fished legally. “It is a win-win state of affairs and the general public can get pleasure from a livelier ocean and fishermen get greater fish.”

A Winners Reception will probably be held on the Laguna School of Artwork & Design on August 4 to coincide with town’s standard Thursday Artwork Stroll and will probably be on show on the LCAD Gallery from August 4-18.

To enter the competition, go to contest.lagunabluebelt.org.

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