A plot of land on California’s Central Coast near Big Sur will soon be made public thanks to the Wilderness Land Trust and the San Francisco Zen Center. In a news release, the Wilderness Land Trust announced the protection of 160 acres of private property in the Ventana Wilderness, a 240,000-acre mountainous area near Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.

The Wilderness Land Trust is a Montana-based nonprofit organization that helps purchase private property and transition it to public land. According to its website, the organization completed similar projects in California near Yosemite and in the Santa Lucia Wilderness. 

“There’s an old Zen saying: ‘If I take care of the mountains, they will take care of us.’ We share this quality of intimate connection with nature with the Wilderness Land Trust, and we deeply appreciate the protection and care this land will continue receiving in the future,” said San Francisco Zen Center President Sozan Miglioli in a statement.

The Wilderness Trust said it plans to transfer the land to the Los Padres National Forest, an expansive 1.75 million-acre protected area that reaches as far north as Monterey County and as far south as Ventura County. The Wilderness Land Trust hopes the parcel of land won’t be the last in the region to be made public. 

“With over 2,000 acres of private inholdings remaining in the Ventana Wilderness, there is still more work to be done,” said the organization.