Sheltered Lands

  California’s most common landscape is chaparral – akin to what’s found in the Mediterranean where winters are mild and summers are dry.       Scrubby and thorny, chaparral carries the scent of sage. It shelters mountain lions and wrentits — the little brown songbirds whose calls bounce like ping-pong balls across the hillsides.  It’s well adapted to fire.  And found at all elevations throughout the state.   At a high elevation sits the Santa Rosa Plateau which lies at the southern end of the Santa Ana Mountains, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego.  It’s a rare flat expanse above the crowded valleys below and is chock-full of uninterrupted chaparral.   Occasionally, ferocious winds roar across the plateau and the Santa Ana mountains.  These devil winds – the Santa Anas – sometimes fan wildfires, as happened recently in Palisades, Altadena, and Malibu.    Steely Dan once wrote lyrics about those de...

  Los Angeles.   Everyone knows it.   A world-famous city of glitz, sunshine, and fame.     What better place to try out an innovative conservation endeavor.   If successful, that endeavor garners extra attention when tied to such a world-famous city.      And so, I’d like to introduce you to The Nature Conservancy’s Bowtie Wetland Demonstration Project .   Imagine the movie Grease - the scene where cars race down a concrete channel speeding along the angled banks in a neck-and-neck battle.   That channel is the LA River which today runs from the Simi Hills through the heart of the city and spills into the Pacific at Long Beach.   To call it an urban river is an understatement.     Runoff from that concrete jungle spills regularly into the LA River.   But at one of the spillways, TNC’s project - expected to be completed in 2027 - will divert stormwater into a constructed wetland and filtrati...

  Twenty-five miles off the California coast, I disembark and wander into the wrong group. “The hikers are meeting under the eucalyptus trees,” someone tells me. Only later do I realize that group is major donors here for a private tour of the island. I was already in awe of Santa Cruz’s beauty as we approached the dock—but learning that it draws conservation leaders and benefactors only deepens my sense that this is one of the most enchanting places I’ve ever visited.   Santa Cruz Island, the largest of the Channel Islands, lies off Ventura in California’s southwest corner. For me, it marks the third of four “corner-of-the-country” Nature Conservancy sites I’ve visited—after Great Wass in Maine (2018) and Blowing Rocks in Florida (2022). Half of Santa Cruz belongs to Channel Islands National Park, the other half to TNC—a partnership that protects high peaks, deep canyons, and miles of wild coastline.   It’s also a place of internationally renowned conservation succes...

  The airline app shows we’ll arrive 45 minutes early. On an east-to-west flight — already a 27-hour day — that’s nearly 28 hours. A nice perk for us mortals, and just enough cushion for my perhaps overly optimistic itinerary.   When I step out of my rental car at The Nature Conservancy (TNC)’s Santa Clara Preserve in Saticoy, California , a pungent urine smell fills the air.   Wasn’t expecting that.   I assume the worst: a mountain lion has marked its territory, so my guard immediately goes up as I enter the trail system.   My wife hates when I travel alone, and trudging into lion country is one of the reasons, I’m sure.   Back east, I rarely worry about wildlife encounters.   But out west, the threats are stout – and few are stouter than mountain lion.     Located just north of the congestion of Los Angeles, the Santa Clara River is one of the most threatened rivers in America – a trifecta of threats. The Santa Clara River is a v...

After three hours of harvesting, I discover the best approach to collecting eelgrass seeds is to simply let go, allowing the current to take me. I’m in a wetsuit for the first time in my life off the coast of Virginia in South Bay.  In the bed of the bay is a vast underwater meadow of eelgrass – a once nearly extinct species making a world-renowned comeback with the help of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and volunteers like me today eager to hunt for seeds.  About one in twenty shoots of eelgrass hold seeds, and those shoots are the prizes us volunteers are searching for.   Most of the eelgrass blades are long and flat, like linguini.  The seeded shoots, though, are rounded, like spaghetti.  Our task is to find the spaghetti among the linguini, then pluck and place them in a mesh bag strapped over our shoulders.  Those shoots will be brought ashore and placed in holding tanks in Oyster, Virginia. There are different techniques for harvesting the seeded s...

Tidewater, Virginia is now just a speck in my rearview.  Its shipbuilding cranes and tall clustered buildings fade as I continue eastward across a 23-mile bridge at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.  This bridge comes ashore at the very tip of Delmarva – a six-thousand square mile peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake.   On the southern tip of Delmarva, life is different.   It has none of the congestion of Tidewater.   Life is more natural.   There’s room to breathe, beautiful views, and quiet peacefulness around every bend.     A few miles up from the tip is the tiny village of Oyster.   Yup, as you’d expect, this town is all about oysters.   A century ago, many of its structures were in different locations – out on the barrier islands fronting Virginia’s coast.   But as those islands shifted and became more vulnerable to storms and rising seas, their buildings were moved to the mainland at Oyster.   Now t...