Why We Care

Mount Diablo and its foothills are the most significant natural landscape in our region. This is our home, where preserving natural land forever means safeguarding the quality of our air, water and views. Save Mount Diablo works to preserve the land on and around Mount Diablo to ensure healthy ecosystems and continued access for people and wildlife.

There are many reasons to save Mount Diablo including:

It's Your Mountain
Mount Diablo is a Biological Hotspot
The Benefits of Preserving Natural Areas
Endemic Species
Mount Diablo History

Read more about Threats to the Mountain

Mount Diablo is a Biological Hotspot
Mount Diablo is the northernmost, signature peak of the Diablo Range, and is in the center of Contra Costa County, 30 miles east of San Francisco.  Created in 1931, Mount Diablo State Park was one of California's first seven state parks but preservation efforts around the mountain languished until 1971, when SMD was founded because the mountain was not getting enough attention, development was creeping into its foothills, and Mount Diablo State Park was starved for acquisition and management funding.

Mount Diablo is an anomaly, considered by the Whitney Geologic Survey to be the key to understanding California’s geology. The mountain’s geology, unusual soils, climatic diversity and location at the edge of the Coastal Range and Central Valley near the Delta, creates a biodiversity “hot spot,” linking a myriad of smaller peaks in an oval of wildlife corridors—much of it privately owned—stretching from the main peak through Altamont Pass to join the rest of the northern Diablo range.

The mountain is the single most important wildlife habitat area in the East Bay and one of the Bay Area’s most important.  Mount Diablo is home to 253 vertebrate animal species.  900 plant species, three quarters of which are native, represent one tenth of the native plants found in California.  More than 150 species are rare or listed, and eleven are endemic to the Mount Diablo region.