Welcome to the Elkhorn Slough Coastal Training Program homepage.

With the significant, increasing impacts of human development along our coast, it is important that everyone has the opportunity to improve their skills and knowledge to help create a more sustainable future.

To answer this need, the National Estuarine Research Reserve System began its Coastal Training Program (CTP). The objectives of this program are to:

• Provide the best available science, tools, and techniques to those individuals and groups whose actions impact coastal watersheds, estuaries and near shore waters.
• Increase our understanding of the environmental, social, and economic consequences of human activity within the coastal landscape.
• Increase information exchange and collaboration amongst the many individuals and institutions who affect coastal ecosystems.

The Elkhorn Slough Coastal Training Program focuses on a variety of local and regional issues including those of particular significance such as habitat management, sustainable agriculture, clean water, eco-tourism, and invasive species.

We strive to provide useful courses that address high priority issues of local and regional importance to planners, managers and regulators of coastal area resources.

The Coastal Training Program brings diverse people together - farmers, fishermen, regulatory personnel, elected officials, landowners, and scientists - to define issues and explore solutions.

As our program grows and develops, we are becoming the region's premier forum that people can trust when they need better information about coastal ecology.