Chaparral Wisdom
To celebrate the magic and beauty of Nature & the chaparral
How The Democratic Party in California Is Selling Out Nature
Those we once thought valued the natural world
are targeting all of wild California
If Senate BIll 1370 becomes law as currently written, it will codify 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 have an opportunity to to say no to this nonsense, to support the environment, and to step away from the mob.
SB 1370 Update
Although numerous amendments added to SB 1370 were able to reduce the environmental harm that will be caused by this law (it was passed by the California Legislature on August 31, 2026), it 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 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.
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.
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