Chaparral Wisdom
To celebrate the magic and beauty of Nature & the chaparral
We Lost Ken Sleight at 97
For those us who forged our environmental passions by reading Ed Abbey, falling in love with our own red rock country, and embracing the visceral and uncompromising connection we have for Wilderness, Ken Sleight has always been an inspiration.
From the Salt Lake Tribune
October 3, 2026
Ken Sleight may be most well known for something that he probably never did: kneeling on the bridge in front of the Glen Canyon Dam, his hands clasped and eyes closed, praying to the Almighty to produce a “precision-type earthquake” that would free the Colorado River from its imprisonment in Lake Powell.
The Sleight-inspired character Seldom Seen Smith acted out the scene in “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” Edward Abbey’s 1975 cult classic of ecosabotage. But although the character was fictional, Sleight’s lifelong hatred of the dam was very real, as was his love of Glen Canyon, the area drowned by Lake Powell.
“It was Glen Canyon that changed my whole life,” Sleight told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2018. “It made an environmentalist out of me.”
Sleight died Friday, Spanish Valley Mortuary in Moab confirmed. He was 97.
“We just lost such a wonderful person,” John Weisheit, director of Living Rivers and friend and mentee of Sleight’s, told The Salt Lake Tribune on Saturday.
“We need more Ken Sleights, not less,” he added.
Please read the rest at the Salt Lake Tribune.
No on Prop 45 and Celebrating Firebirds!
And if you live in San Diego County, please vote NO on Measure B
The habitat destroyers are at it again with CA State Proposition 45. Please vote NO.
And if you are in San Diego County, also vote NO on Measure B.
Both will allow massive habitat clearance projects under the guise of fire prevention to go forward without environmental review, objective scientific oversight, and opportunities for you to provide input. Prop 45 is straight forward on this. Measure B is a tax that provides zero details, but will fund habitat clearance projects of unknown scope.
Both will make the landscape more flammable by causing the spread of flammable non-native weeds and grasses.
Because we keep beating these folks in court, and because there is so much money sloshing around to clear nature, they are turning to the ballot box to void the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Don’t be fooled by the propaganda. This is about the money, plain and simple.
On a more encouraging note, please enjoy this fabulous short film about one of the many species that depend on large, high-severity wildfires for their survival. The existence of these species proves that large, high-severity fires have been part of the natural environment for millions of years. They also expose the twin fallacies of past fire suppression and landscape scale Native American fire use.
Here’s the link to the film:
https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la/shows/more-on-that
Also, please pick up a copy of Dick Hutto’s fabulous book, A Beautifully Burned Forest: Learning to Celebrate Severe Forest Fire.
How The Democratic Party in California Is Selling Out Nature
Those we once thought valued the natural world
are targeting all of wild California
Senate BIll 1370, as originally written by the Democratic Party, would have codified one of the final pieces in the movement in California that views nature and wild through an anthropocentric lens. The paradigm justifies the clearance of habitat, the logging of forests, and the demonization of shrubland ecosystems through a well crafted, but false narrative. According to this narrative, based on models without data, magical thinking about Indigenous fire use, and confirmation bias, nature is seen as overgrown and in need of immediate mitigation. The vision is to create artificial landscapes pleasing to our needs – park-like forests, chaparral broken up into widely spaced clumps, expansive rangelands unencumbered by shrubs and trees, and the elimination of so-called “bad” fire – nature itself is seen as unnatural.
Yes, there are many who claim with an abundance of rhetoric that data or opinions contrary to this dream are false. Objective, scientific debate is often shut down with ad hominem characterizations, or worse. And the very idea of wilderness becomes diminished by revisionist history.
It is during such a time when the ability to question becomes even more crucial. During such a time is when laws created by more enlightened people are so important. During such a time is when the power of the individual needs protection. CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act) was created for such a time.
It makes perfect sense why the governor wants to eliminate CEQA protections of the environment and why many are in favor of such action. Democracy can be so annoying.
The California Legislature had an opportunity to to say no to this nonsense, to support the environment, and to step away from the mob. They blew it.
SB 1370 Update
Although numerous amendments added to SB 1370 were able to reduce the environmental harm that would have been caused in chaparral and sage scrub habitats (it was passed by the California Legislature on August 31, 2026), the new law still helps to facilitate Governor Newsom’s long term vision of allowing Cal Fire, California State Parks, misguided non-profits, and the timber industry to eliminate as much wild Nature in California as they can get away with. Their goal is to replace wild with artificial, park-like landscapes through clearing, logging, and herbicide.
The problems with the new law as passed include:
1. The public is shut out. There is no requirement for public hearings for covered individual projects or that public comment needs to be properly addressed as previously required under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). In addition, there is no requirement to provide notice to local communities immediately surrounding the proposed treatment project. Since the public’s right to object to covered environmentally damaging projects has also been removed, it will be up to the Attorney General or District Attorney (at the request of governmental agencies and boards) to ensure projects do not cause environmental harm. We have already pointed out to the Attorney General (AG) numerous vegetation treatment projects that violate Cal Fire’s own Vegetation Treatment Program (VTP) – a document that is already deficient under CEQA. We have yet to see any willingness by the AG to intervene, let alone prosecute.
This “streamlining” process of project approval takes the environmental safety guardrails off Cal Fire and associated agencies, allowing serious mistakes to move forward without question. Such an approach has been responsible for many other industrial and land management disasters in our nation’s history.
2. Forests will take it on the chin. The law exempts clearing and logging projects up to 1,000 acres in forests from the environmental protections under CEQA.
3. The Board says so. Through the law’s emergency provisions, the Board of Forestry is being given nearly dictatorial power over the clearance of forest ecosystems. And a mentioned in #1 above, there won’t be much the public can do about it, which is Governor Newsom’s and the new law’s intent.
Statement by state environmental groups opposing SB 1370.