Chaparral Wisdom
To celebrate the magic and beauty of Nature & the chaparral
URGENT: Stop California from Gutting Environmental Protection Laws that Protect us from Vested Interests
SB 1370 by Senators Stern and Becker
waives nearly every environmental protection law
to allow the clearance of up to 3,000 acres
of chaparral and forest habitat
On its way out the door, the Newsom administration is attempting push a bill through the state legislature that would eviscerate environmental laws. These laws ensure that science and objective oversight have a chance at stopping destructive government projects.
We tried our best to seek amendments this past week, but the bill is not fixable.
SB 1370 would prevent anyone from questioning massive habitat clearance projects under the guise of wildfire prevention. As a consequence, SB 1370 will:
1. Increase the flammability of the landscape through the spread of flammable, non-native weeds and grasses which are responsible for nearly all wildfire ignitions.
2. Draw fire protection funds away from our neighborhoods to log forests often far from communities most at risk.
3. Decrease California’s amazing biodiversity by creating artificial landscapes that please the logging and biomass industries, but are habitat poor.
4. Waive laws that protect us from chemical herbicides.
5. Convert our native shrublands like chaparral and coastal sage scrub into fields of weeds and isolated remnants of unhealthy habitat.
Cal Fire and other government agencies have demonstrated many times they are unable or unwilling to follow the science to protect our communities from wildfire and protect the environment from counterproductive and damaging projects.
We need our current environmental laws to force them to pay attention to the facts.
AND WE MUST ACT FAST! SB 1370 is before the Assembly Appropriations Committee TOMORROW morning, Thursday, August 13.
What You Can Do By Tomorrow Lunch
1. Get the facts right. Please read today’s excellent article, California can prevent wildfires without abandoning safety, environmental protections by Wendy-Sue Rosen. You can also spend a few moments to understand the impacts SB 1370 will have via our webpages here:
“Fuel” Treatments
and
Prescribed Fire
2. Send opposition emails and notes by tomorrow lunch.
In your EMAIL, NOTES, or CALLS, please use your own words. Please DO NOT cut and paste or copy what we written here – doing so minimizes the impact of your input as the offices will see the duplication.
Two avenues to express your opposition to SB 1370:
- A. Send an opposition to SB 1370 email to the full committee here:
approps.committee@assembly.ca.gov - B. Call tonight/tomorrow morning. SB 1370 is being heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee tomorrow, Thursday, August 13. The bill is on the later part of the committee’s agenda, so we probably have time to get the message in before their lunch break. Please pick a few of the folks on committee and call their offices, telling them:
I’m calling to urge the Assembly member to vote NO on SB 1370,
which would waive environmental laws for habitat clearance projects that will
– increase the flammability of the landscape,
– draw fire protection funds away from communities at risk,
– cause native habitats to convert into more flammable, weedy grasslands,
– and put the health and safety of Californians, ecosystems, and water quality at risk.
Thank you.
Assembly member office phone numbers
Speaker Robert Rivas– (916) 319-2029
Buffy Wicks – (916) 319-2014
Dr. Joaquin Arambula – (916) 319-2031
Lisa Calderon – (916) 319-2056
Jessica M. Caloza – (916) 319-2052
Mike Fong – (916) 319-2049
Mark González – (916) 319-2054
Maggy Krell – (916) 319-2006
Blanca Pacheco – (916) 319-2064
Gail Pellerin – (916) 319-2028
Dr. LaShae Sharp-Collins – (916) 319-2079
5. If the bill continues on, we will provide you updates
on how you can continue to help.
The current bill and its status can be viewed here.
Reining in Boys with Matches and Chainsaws – Back to Court
Cal Fire and the California Board of Forestry refuse to enforce
court ordered environmental protections
Now that they are flush with cash, boys with their matches and chainsaws are on a roll, burning and grinding up habitat under the guise of land “management.” One wonders how nature survived without us. And they are breaking the law.
Cal Fire and the California Board of Forestry are violating the Appellate Court order we won last year, an order with the intent of preventing Cal Fire from making the landscape more flammable while destroying nature along the way.
Cal Fire and the Board are allowing habitat clearance projects to occur in chaparral that do not follow the environmental protections designed to prevent the conversion of native shrublands to non-native weedlands, as well as ignoring protections in their own Vegetation Treatment Program document (VTP). They are also violating the law, again. (PRC 4483 and the California Environmental Protection Act).
And both Cal Fire and the Board are refusing to accept any responsibility to enforce the agreements they made or even the VTP itself. Experiencing the denials was worthy of a Marx Brothers movie.
One of the fundamental obligations of American citizenship is to stand up for what is right and call out the government when it is in the wrong. And so, we are celebrating this month’s 4th of July by doing exactly what the framers of the US Constitution expected us to do to maintain our vigorous democracy. We are going back to court.
Here’s our new Writ of Mandate we just filed Monday. It is really quite a joy to read.
The End of Wild Nature in California
Governor Newsom and Cal Fire target all wildlands in California
with herbicides, logging, grinding machines, and fire
Part I: The scope of the destruction
One third of California, 35.5 million acres, are in the sights of the state’s new, updated Vegetation Management Program (VTP). Rather than something to cherish, Nature is now seen as the enemy, a thing that needs to be controlled, mitigated, cleared. Using Orwellian double-speak to mask the madness, the clearance and ripping apart dense, biodiverse habitat is referred to as “ecological restoration,” improving “forest health,” and making wildlands “fire resilient.”
In this eleven part series we will be offering an in-depth look into the consequences of the belief that Nature can not function without us, and needs to be forever mowed, trimmed, and chemically treated to create the fantasy gardens of European royalty – open pastures, forests with trees spaced for picnics, and mosaics of neatly shaped shrubbery.
The Nature-as-our-garden belief has seduced environmental organizations, public agencies charged with protecting wildlands, politicians, research institutions, and the public into thinking that if we can just “manage” the entire landscape of California like Indigenous Peoples are claimed to have done, we will be safe from wildfire forever.
We are being lied to.
We’ll first provide an overview of the state’s Nature-is-the-enemy battle plan, then ten recommendations concerning how to change the approach in a way that will actually save lives and property from wildfire, and keep Nature wild.
Part I: The scope of the destruction
February 25, 2026
Dear Members of the California Board of Forestry,
By targeting more than a third of California, the Cal Vegetation Treatment Program update will impact nearly every wild landscape remaining in California under state jurisdiction. And through partnership agreements, it will also influence how wildlands under federal and tribal jurisdiction will be managed.
Consequently, the CalVTP update has the potential of having the greatest negative environmental impact on protected wildlands, state parks, local preserves, and wild open space of any state policy or project on record.
Read More