More Than a Walk in the Woods

If you ask Sue Eisaguirre what NatureTrack is really about, she won’t begin by talking about trails or field trips. She’ll tell you about a child.

Maybe it’s the student who had never seen the Pacific Ocean before stepping onto a NatureTrack field trip. Or the child who crouches beside a tidepool, eyes wide with wonder as they discover sea stars, sea anemones, hermit crabs, and other marine life for the first time. Sometimes it’s a student quietly journaling after exploring a trail, or someone using a wheelchair who never imagined they would again reach the water’s edge and experience the ocean.

“Those are the moments that stay with you,” Eisaguirre, NatureTrack’s Founder and Executive Director, says. “Nature has an incredible ability to change us. Once someone experiences that connection, they begin to care differently.”

That simple belief has guided NatureTrack Foundation for 15 years.

Every day, NatureTrack works to remove barriers between people and nature, whether those barriers are financial, physical, or simply a lack of opportunity. Through free K–12 environmental education programs, students throughout Santa Barbara County discover beaches, forests, trails, and open spaces many have never explored before. Through the NatureTrack Trax Program, individuals with mobility challenges gain access to beaches and trails that once felt out of reach. Through the NatureTrack Film Festival and Monthly Special Screening Series, audiences are inspired by stories of conservation, adventure, and hope.

For Eisaguirre, these aren’t separate programs. They’re different ways of accomplishing the same mission.

“We’re helping people fall in love with nature,” she says. “Because once that happens, everything changes.”

Today, NatureTrack is preparing for its next chapter.

NatureTrack has launched a transformational $3.4 million campaign to expand environmental education, increase accessibility through the NatureTrack Trax Program, strengthen conservation storytelling, and ensure that even more children, families, seniors, and individuals of all abilities can experience the healing and inspiration found outdoors.

It’s an investment not simply in programs, but in possibility.

• More children discovering the outdoors for the first time.

• More students developing a lifelong connection to nature.

• More accessible adventures.

• More conservation leaders inspired by firsthand experiences in nature.

Every contribution helps remove barriers and create opportunities for people to experience something many of us take for granted: the wonder of the natural world.

Now, as Eisaguirre reflects on the future, she hopes the next generation inherits more than beautiful landscapes.

“I hope they inherit a relationship with nature,” she says. “Because when people truly connect with the natural world, they want to protect it. That’s how lasting stewardship begins.”