The 41-site University of California Natural Reserve System was founded in 1965 to provide natural landscapes for research, education, and public service. These unique living laboratories are places for understanding our natural world today and what environmental change may mean for our future.
UC Santa Barbara manages seven of these Reserves, which comprise Valentine Camp Reserve and the Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory — both located in Mammoth Lakes — the Kenneth S. Norris Rancho Marino Reserve in Cambria, the Santa Cruz Island Reserve, Sedgwick Reserve in the Santa Ynez Valley, the Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve, and Coal Oil Point Reserve on UCSB’s West Campus.