Chaparral Wisdom
To celebrate the magic and beauty of Nature & the chaparral
New Video – California Chaparral: The Most Underrated Biome
How did Nature ever survive without us?
This is a question those who eagerly manipulate wildlands need to ask themselves, be they from environmental management organizations like California State Parks and the Nature Conservancy, or fire agencies like Cal Fire and the US Forest Service, all of which encourage the clearance of habitat under the guise of “ecological restoration” supported by a plethora of misconceptions, especially concerning fire.
The new video below is being shared by us to encourage those who are willing to rally their courage and challenge their organization’s human-centric view of Nature and to help fight for the right of native plants and animals to be left alone.
The video focuses on chaparral, a particular target of those who fail to understand the role dense shrubbery plays, including dense forest understories, in supporting California’s rich biodiversity. It was created by an inspiring young man who has been tirelessly championing Nature for the past few years through his fabulous YouTube channel, Jack 4 the Planet.
Enjoy Jack’s new video, California Chaparral – Underappreciated Yet Incredibly Important, by clicking on the image below.
Celebrating Our Species Progress
We have so much to be grateful for, something that becomes clear when you take control.
Celebrating the state of our species came to mind after learning of the loss of P-22, the legendary cougar of the Santa Monica Mountains and Griffith Park. He was mercifully euthanized by a team of caring veterinarians last month after sustaining injuries from being hit by a car. The news caused me to think about the multi-million dollar wildlife crossing bridge soon to be built over Highway 101 near Liberty Canyon in Los Angeles County. I wondered if someday wolves would be using the bridge, wolves from the pack that has been finding its way into California due to our efforts to reintroduce the species in Yellowstone National Park.
What accounts for these incredibly expensive and heartfelt efforts to care for species that used to be our competitors, our predators, creatures that once made living in North America a seriously dangerous affair? There was good reason Native Americans celebrated the Spanish having their guns – it made living in California much safer by dispatching the great terror of the landscape, the California grizzly bear. Not only did grizzlies kill humans, but the bears raided the valuable stores of acorns many tribal groups collected and depended upon for food.
But after thousands of years of civilization, many nations have become wealthy enough, secure enough, to view Nature as something to cherish, rather than fear.
We are experiencing a unique time in human history when a large percentage of the population values wildness, Wilderness, and all the non-human species we share this planet with. Beginning with the creation of Yellowstone National Park, followed by the efforts of John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt to protect even more, there is now broad public support for preserving Nature.
Such positive change is not restricted to our relationship with Nature. As Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has pointed out, “Extreme poverty has been decimated: It’s gone from 90 percent of the world’s population to 10 percent. Literacy has increased from about 15 percent to more than 85 percent. Prosperity has increased; longevity has increased from about 30 to about 71 years worldwide, and 80 in the developed world.”
Even a superficial understanding human history reveals how far we’ve moved away from our standard operating procedures of violence, slavery, murder, and mayhem. And despite the not-so-small hiccup after the collapse of Rome, the positive advancements in philosophy, science, and politics, especially the little experiment in democracy, have been breathtaking. Empirical thought has replaced witchcraft and mythology.
Read MoreManzanita on the Rocks – A Vivifying and Surprising Cocktail
Searching for exposed slices of Vulcan’s highly viscous, ancient exudations during our Thanksgiving holiday road trip may strike one as somewhat odd. But then again, it was a perfect way to celebrate Nature’s ability to remind us of our ephemeral existence, our atavistic connections to rock, manzanitas, and the Dionysian freedom available when we dare dissolve the boundaries that separate us not only from other living things, but from our own unfettered selves.
Celebrating such connections wound its way through my own nervous tissue while swinging a geology hammer one morning during our holiday adventure. In need of rock samples for our upcoming Chaparral Naturalist course, we pulled over to examine a road cut revealing a deposit of 250-million-year-old rhyolite, a highly viscous, rich-in-silica, lava flow a few miles east of Redding, California, along Highway 299.
Pump lots of air into the stuff and you have pumice. Concentrate the silica, cool it quickly, and you’ve got obsidian. Keep it underground and let it cool slowly, you’ve baked a pluton loaf of granite. Four kinds of igneous rocks, all with the same ingredients, just cooked differently.
Consider that, what you have just read. Imagine now, being there.
You’ve had a faint understanding of rocks, but now you know a few names. You’ve learned that these previously amorphous hard objects you’ve passed by a thousand times have stories. The next road cut, the next layer, the next unusual pebble will never be the same again.
Now consider how much fun you’ve had at gatherings with a few friends and a sprinkling of curious strangers. In both situations, geologicalizing and partying, familiarity provides opportunities to learn more, to discover new things. New worlds open up, your mind expands.
Curiosity inspired by Nature.
Photos: (L) Exploring the signs of Vulcan’s past activity. (R) The geological map of the roadside adventure marked with an “M”. The purple marked Pbh identifies the rhyolite deposit. The red line is Highway 299. Notice how the road bends around Little Cow Creek. The greenish areas (Pd) identify an andesite deposit, another volcanic exudation with a bit less silica, more calcium.
Lost in the thought of exploring the infinite world of terra firma, speeding tourists and truck drivers, seeing this wayward figure hacking away with abandon, honked their horns as they roared by. Were they humorously curious or signaling their kinship with geophilia? I doubted the latter as geo-literacy is an uncommon state of affairs for most, a perplexing condition considering our lives are spent playing in geology when we’re young, walking upon it as we travel through the years, and being buried in it at the end. Dust to dust. One might as well go through life without taste buds.
And then there’s the life that emerges from the geology.
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