Environment

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Stinging and Biting Bugs of Summer

Stinging and biting insects, including mosquitos, black flies, and wasps, are an inevitable part of summer in the Santa Monica Mountains, especially following a wet winter.  There are a bewildering number of…

California Breathin’: Air Quality and Our Kids

School is over.  Progress reports are out and someone got a bad grade.   In the latest report card released by UCLA, Los Angeles County received a “C” for air quality. Twenty…

The Many Roles of MRCA Call Firefighters

Ed Edmiston of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (SMMC) reminds us of the capabilities and challenges as we face, yet again, the “worst fire season ever.” The Mountains Restoration Conservation Authority (MRCA)…

3

Cohabiting where the Wild Things Are

There are just two major cities on earth where big cats and humans are known to coexist, one of them is Mumbai, India, where leopards still thrive, the other is Los Angeles,…

7

#Topanga Fire

FOR FIVE DAYS, L.A. COUNTY’S FIRE FIGHTING ARSENAL OF FIVE WATER-DROPPING HELICOPTERS WERE BROUGHT TO BEAR ON THIS STEEP, IMPENETRABLE TERRAIN THAT KEPT GROUND CREWS AT BAY. Around the same time as…

Our National Monuments

  Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s recent recommendation to review the status of 27 national monuments, “shrink” the size of California’s Bears Ears National Monument, and “privatize” other national parks has generated ferocious…

Rondell Oasis Hotel Blocks Historic Trailhead

Calabasas City officials continue to approve inappropriate development that encroaches into ecologically and culturally sensitive areas, this time at the mouth of Malibu Canyon at Las Virgenes Road where a three-story hotel…

MRCA Purchases Critical Land in Liberty Canyon!

On June 15, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) closed escrow on 5 key acres in Liberty Canyon (APN 2052-013-040). The acquisition of this property within the Liberty Canyon wildlife corridor…

Bake Sales and Planting Trees

Manzanita School’s Speakers Series brings campus to community for a multi-generational discussion of new paradigms that connect a deep understanding of nature to everyday living and to global concerns, like seeds that…

NASA’s Down-to-Earth View of Drought Impacts

  Rosi Dagit tapped NASA and a formidable team of ecologists in a study that analyzed the impacts of drought and beetles on our woodlands throughout the local ecosystem. When you look…