Chaparral Wisdom
To celebrate the magic and beauty of Nature & the chaparral
Please Vote NO on Prop 4 – Protect the Chaparral
Proposition 4 will fund Cal Fire’s master plan to clear hundreds of thousands of acres of chaparral across the State of California – $1.5 billion worth to grind up, burn, and spray herbicides on California’s most characteristic native ecosystem, or as the State now views all of Nature, “fuel.”
Please help us stop this madness by voting NO on Prop 4 in the upcoming election. We are fighting Cal Fire’s plan in court. This is your opportunity as an individual to fight it at the ballot box.
Disguised as being used for “forest health” and “wildfire protection,” $1.5 billion is tucked into the $10 billion bond that includes a number of environmental goals in an attempt to bribe the public into supporting it. Another $1.2 billion is designated for “restoration” of natural areas, which in Cal Fire’s Orwellian view of Nature means even more habitat clearance, logging, and herbicide use.
The analysis of the proposition by the state suggests that some of the bond money “could” be used to purchase land to be set aside – a cynical play on gaining the support of land conservancies. However, the question that needs to be asked is, “What good does it do to borrow billions to acquire or expand natural areas when Cal Fire or State Parks will only end up destroying the habitat through their clearance projects?”
We’ve lost enough Nature. It’s time to say no more. Let’s protect what’s left.
Please, vote NO on Prop 4.
(see additional details below)
Added 10/10/2024: We’ve been receiving a lot of additional questions about the proposition, namely that there isn’t a specific place in the bond that mentions that Cal Fire will be clearing native, chaparral habitat.
Such language is not in the bond because that state does not want to say they will be logging, clearing, and spraying herbicide on 10 million acres of native habitat (their stated goal). Such language would not be conducive to getting the bond passed. We are being lied to.
Here’s some additional information that will help clarify the situation, copied from our comments below:
The writers of the bond measure use Orwellian euphemisms like “forest health and fire resilience,” “restoration of natural ecosystem functions”, and “chaparral restoration” to mask what the $1.5 billion will actually be used to fund (Pgs. 83-85 in your Voter Info Guide – Section 91500).
Based on Cal Fire’s Vegetation Treatment Program (VTP), and what Cal Fire is currently doing, what these euphemisms really mean is logging, grinding up native habitat with masticators, and spraying of herbicides to clear whatever natural habitat is deemed “fuel.” Their target – 10 million acres. A large percentage of their targeted landscape is covered by chaparral. Much of the $1.5 billion in Prop 4 will be used to fund that clearance effort. Some of the additional $1.2 billion in Section 93500 will be used in similar ways for undefined “ecosystem health” and “restoration” of rangeland (i.e. native shrublands to weedy grasslands) projects.
Cal Fire is the administrator or actual contractor for the habitat “management” objectives outlined in the proposition.
Many of us have been fighting Cal Fire’s effort to domesticate Nature for over 20 years. You can read about our fight, and why we are in court fighting Cal Fire now, here:
https://californiachaparral.org/threats/cal-fire/
How will all this translate on the ground?
A devastating example is the ecological damage California State Parks and Cal Fire have caused to Rancho Cuyamaca State Park. They are attempting to do the same thing at Tomales Bay State Park now. You can see the impact at Cuyamaca on our web page here:
https://californiachaparral.org/threats/cuyamaca-state-park/
Adding more fire to the landscape in the form of prescribed fire, which the Prop 4 will fund, can eliminate native chaparral habitat, one of the primary targets of Cal Fire’s VTP. Cal Fire see natural stands of dense, biodiverse old-growth chaparral as “decadent” and in need of removal. They are currently calling for landscape-scale clearance operations to do so.
Here’s a good explanation of the damage such “treatments” can cause:
https://californiachaparral.org/threats/prescribed-fire/
Nearly all the habitat clearance projects to be funded by Prop 4 are justified by the false notion that most of Nature is sick as a result of past fire suppression and needs to be cleaned out. While some forested systems have dodged a fire or two due to firefighting, the fire suppression fallacy is utilized to justify clearance projects regardless of ecosystem type.
You can learn more about the Fire Suppression Fallacy here:
https://chaparralwisdom.org/2023/05/02/the-beginnings-of-the-fire-suppression-fallacy/
Will Prop 4 provide funds that will be used for positive things? Yes. But due to Cal Fire’s influence in Sacramento, they have been able to include funding for their efforts to clear 10 million acres of habitat throughout the state, hoping to fool the public into thinking this is a purely environmental bond. Cal Fire is cynical enough to believe that ploy will work. We need to let them know we won’t fall for it.
Receiving money for favored projects, no matter how good they are, is to betray Nature across the entire state.
Additional Sections in Proposition 4 that fund habitat clearance
Section 90100
“Restoration” includes “Prescribed burning and other fuel hazard reduction measures” (Section 90100(i)(1)(F).) So every time “restoration” is mentioned, the funding could support prescribed burning and habitat clearing.
91500 provides 1.5 Billion to be appropriated by the legislature for wildfire prevention, “including reducing community wildfire risk and restoring the health and resilience of forests and landscapes.”
Section 91520 grants $1.25 Billion to the Natural Resources Agency…”to reduce the risk of wildfire spreading into populated areas from wildlands…
Section 91520(c) grants 1.75 million to the “Department of Forestry and Fire Protection [for] ….prescribed fire, prescribed grazing, cultural fire…”
Section 91520(f) grants 200 million specifically for the “restoration of natural ecosystem function…and may including prescribed fire, cultural fire, environmentally sensitive vegetation management…science based fuel reduction.” Such section specifically includes chaparral and coastal forests.
Section 91520(g) make 50 million in grants available to others for fuel reduction
Section 91520(h) grants 33.5 million to the Sierra Nevada Conservanc for “chaparral and forest restoration” (“restoration includes prescribed burning (90100)”
Section 91520(o) grants 15 million to California Fire Foundation to support vegetation mitigation and fuels reduction projects.
The Nature Of Life. Wilderness As A Crucible For Finding Our Humanity For The First Time
The trail along the ashen gray cliff was maybe ten inches wide. To the left was a 200-foot drop into Convict Canyon and its roaring creek pushing through jagged rockfall. To the right was a steep mountain side of scree and gray boulders, all the product of the massive, decomposing marble metamorph above. The darkened sky matched the rocks. The wind blew snow under the flaps of our packs. No greenery, anywhere.
The trail gave way. My exhausted legs attempted to maintain balance, but the 40-pound pack on my back, along with the disorientation caused by the wind and snow blowing in my face, allowed gravity to take over. I have had a few moments like this in the Sierra Nevada, but never with gnawing teeth below.
I slowly teetered to the left. Scree poured into my boot. I could feel blood draining from my face. There was nothing to grab. Yet, upright I remained, albeit down on a single knee, with my left leg sinking into squishy sand and pebbles. Tilting to the right for leverage, I pushed against a rock, somehow managing to convince my weary thigh to push me up. I stood there for a moment, my lungs straining to pull in enough oxygen in the thin air. Then I took a step forward. Continuing onward down the trail, I eventually caught up with my friend Rudy around the bend.
“This snow is something else,” he said after hearing the crunch of my boots on the fragile trail.
The morning of, having just emerged from our tent, noses blown, peed, and faces splashed with water, we walked back and forth on the cold, barren rock that surrounded our camp as tiny snow drifts accumulated in the crevasses. We occasionally examined the little stove to check if the flame was still lit, to see how close the water was to boiling. “People will ask, ya know,” Rudy mumbled as he paced, “You guys really had fun being that uncomfortable?” Both of us laughed. “Nothing we can say will make any sense,” I said.
Photo: The trail going home, in the wind and snow, in August.
Several days after returning home, my friend Dave, the third member of our backpacking adventure, came by for a cup of coffee. “One day of bitter cold and rock in the Sierra,” he said while watching the birds from our backyard deck, “is worth a thousand days sitting here like this. Comfort doesn’t mean much without knowing how it feels to lose it.”
Read MoreCelebrating John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt
Have you been seduced by urban myths, or in this case, mythical urban quotes?
As part of our celebration of John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt this summer season (because we are headed into the John Muir Wilderness soon), we wanted to share with you our new Muir/Roosevelt display at our retreat center (see photo below). We also thought we’d engage in one of our favorite pastimes – shinning light on misconceptions about Nature. As you know, chaparral suffers an especially heavy dose of urban mythology whenever we endeavor to educate the public about our favorite ecosystem.
You may have heard this quote attributed to Muir in context of celebrating the outdoors:
“The mountains are calling and I must go.”
We were going to use this as the title of our note to you, but we first visited our favorite fact-checking site on Muir, maintained by some of the few folks who still respect Muir at the Sierra Club.
Well, as with much about Muir, this line is taken out of context by those who (unintentionally or not) use Muir to accent their own beliefs. In this case, making us think that Muir was just expressing his love for dashing off to the Sierra for a recreational adventure. Think not.
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