Los Padres National Forest Archive

  • As California continues with massive wind-driven, high-intensity wildfires that often turn deadly, the governmental and institutional response has been to thin forests and "grind up vegetation" to fight fires. Naomi Pitcairn points to a movement by plant community and wildfire experts led by the Richard Halsey of the Chaparral Institute to focus on protecting vulnerable communities rather than trying to control nature, which now faces extreme heatwaves and droughts from an unpredictable greenhouse-gas-warmed climate.

    Confronting Wildfire: Retrofit Communities, Not Forests

    Posted on September 17, 2018 | 2 Comments
    As California continues with massive wind-driven, high-intensity wildfires that often turn deadly, the governmental and institutional response has been to thin forests and "grind up vegetation" to fight fires. Naomi Pitcairn points to a movement by plant community and wildfire experts led by the Richard Halsey of the Chaparral Institute to focus on protecting vulnerable communities rather than trying to control nature, which now faces extreme heatwaves and droughts from an unpredictable greenhouse-gas-warmed climate.

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  • Jack Eidt writes on the California wildfires and their dangerous connection with climate change, melting of Arctic sea ice, and the drying out of the US West Coast. We must reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, get cracking on a just transition to an economy based on clean, efficient, renewable energy, and start making our homes and lives more extreme-climate-resilient.

    Extreme Winds and Wildfires, On Overcoming California Climate Chaos

    Posted on December 19, 2017 | 3 Comments
    Jack Eidt writes on the California wildfires and their dangerous connection with climate change, melting of Arctic sea ice, and the drying out of the US West Coast. We must reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, get cracking on a just transition to an economy based on clean, efficient, renewable energy, and start making our homes and lives more extreme-climate-resilient.

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  • The California Condor Recovery Program has defied the odds to rescue from oblivion the last of the prehistorics and icon of Native Californian cosmology. Threats such as lead ammunition, microtrash, and sprawling land development threaten these impressive gains of an endangered species. The film "The Condor's Shadow" documents this struggle.

    California Condor: Overcoming Extinction, A Symbol of Renewal

    Posted on March 6, 2013 | 2 Comments
    The California Condor Recovery Program has defied the odds to rescue from oblivion the last of the prehistorics and icon of Native Californian cosmology. Threats such as lead ammunition, microtrash, and sprawling land development threaten these impressive gains of an endangered species. The film "The Condor's Shadow" documents this struggle.

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  • The late Cecilia Garcia taught Chumash traditional spirit healing with prayers, laughter, dreaming, herbal medicines and aromatherapy, leading to mending the body's physical processes.

    Self-Healing with Chumash Native Plant Medicine

    Posted on October 21, 2011 | 6 Comments
    The late Cecilia Garcia taught Chumash traditional spirit healing with prayers, laughter, dreaming, herbal medicines and aromatherapy, leading to mending the body's physical processes.

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