A gray whale surfaces off Baha California Norbert Wu/Minden

For as long as anyone along Baja California's Laguna San Ignacio can remember, with winter come the whales: hundreds of pregnant gray whales that have swum some 4,000 miles from the frigid Arctic to the safety of the lagoon to give birth to their young. NRDC has been working for a decade to protect this last unspoiled breeding ground, most recently by launching a campaign to protect one million acres of land surrounding the lagoon. In 2000, NRDC was instrumental in fighting off a giant saltworks project that would have devastated the whale sanctuary, and in March, it helped stop the construction of a giant pier that would have invited large oceangoing vessels and cruise ships to crisscross whale migration routes. That same month, one of Mexico's largest television networks, TV Azteca, held a daylong telethon to raise money for the cause. (NRDC's Latino outreach director, Adrianna Quintero-Somaini, was one of the show's guests.) During the telethon, the Mexican government announced its intent to donate 109,000 acres of federal land bordering the lagoon -- at the center of the proposed saltworks -- to the conservation effort. Total acres preserved so far: 249,000. For more information, visit www.biogems.org.