Wildfire, Like Lightning, Can Strike Twice
Thin, glowing traces of lightning passed through the skylight above my bed and circumvented my eyelids to etch their way directly onto my brain as I slept. I awoke with...
Category: Essays
Original essays about conservation, science, and natural history in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Y tú, de dónde eres?
After re-learning natural history, an ecologist returns home -- and sees something new.
What I Carry on an Outdoor Adventure
When leadership means modeling interdependence, not just choosing the right gear
The Cafe Ohlone Transition, in its Founders’ Words
This is an excerpt from an email message sent on July 6 to supporters of mak-‘amham, the Cafe Ohlone. We are reposting it here with permission from the writers. Learn...
People of Color Have Always Been Outdoors. What Can We Learn from Past Decades of Engagement and Inclusion Work?
This article first appeared in the interdisciplinary journal Parks Stewardship Forum under the title “Coloring Outside the Lines | Connecting the Dots: Why does what and who came before us...
How the Mistakenly Named “Himalayan” Blackberry Became a California Summer Tradition
With five to seven leaves resembling outstretched fingers on the palm of a hand, the blackberry Rubus armeniacus grows from curved, blood-red stalks resembling veins. Sonoma County horticulturalist Luther Burbank...
After Losing Several Key Battles Over Water, Delta Advocates See Hope in the Last Option Remaining: the Law
Is bad news good news for the Bay and Delta's diminishing flows?
The Beautiful Geometry of Short-eared Owls
I’m not usually masochistic. But then I spent three months this winter trying to observe extremely elusive short eared owls in a busy park in the inner Bay Area. (I’ll...
Can Better Forestry Jobs Prevent Fires and Restore Rural America?
On an unseasonably warm November day in a rural neighborhood in the western Sierra Nevada, men with chainsaws patrol a tree thicket that burned three years ago. One man, whose...
How People Saved the Seabirds of the California Current
It wasn’t until the federal government took away several of my favorite fisheries, and access to my favorite spots, that I fully comprehended what I had previously taken for granted...
