Southern California is known for its mild Mediterranean climate where shorts and flip-flops are popular during the hot and sunny summer, sometimes right on through a balmy winter.
Chaparral covers most of our four Southern California national forests, creating important habitat and watershed. But what is chaparral? And why does it burn so frequently here? What can communities do to prevent damage and risk from wildfire?
Global warming is not just a distant threat. Rising temperatures, shifts in weather patterns and increasing storm intensity are just a few of the symptoms already being felt in communities across America.
It’s an exciting time for wilderness and outdoor advocates in Southern California, as three different conservation initiatives are underway in the southern half of the Golden State, including wild areas in the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County, a pair of remote locales in northern San Diego County, and a vast expanse of currently unprotected land in the Mojave Desert, including multiple wilderness expansion proposals, numerous Wild and Scenic River designations, and two new National Monuments.
Southern California is known for its mild Mediterranean climate where shorts and flip-flops are popular during the hot and sunny summer, sometimes right on through a balmy winter.
Not nearly as famous, but just as characteristic of the Southland, are its chaparral wild lands. Chaparral is a native plant community of many species, including chamise, red shank, ceanothus, manzanita, scrub oak and other shrubby plants.
