Heresies

These will lead us, hopefully, into some serious paradigm shifts; if we continue to cling to the party line, the trend will lead us cheerfully into the pit, feeling smugly self-righteous all the way down. 

• Cows and horses and sheep are not the enemy of native grasslands, in fact they are often its only hope
• Ditto for fire, vis à vis chaparral and forests
• Nearly all rare plants grow in places where plant cover is the most sparse, not the most dense; bare ground is often a good thing
• Erosion is no big deal, except on agricultural land
• It is not one ounce more virtuous to plant “natives” in your garden than non-natives (this, like the ‘restoration’ fad, is almost entirely a feelgood scam by which some people make money by exploiting the guilty conscience and good intentions of others)
• Taking things out of the environment is almost never as risky and detrimental as putting things into it 
• We are helping the plant and animal rich to get richer and poor to get poorer, just as is happening among us humans
• “Disturbance” often does more good than harm, especially open country like grasslands, sand dunes, etc
• The kinds of environment that has been “protected” by most State and National Parks are the kinds least in need of protection, and vice versa
• Most of our forests have too many trees
• Coast redwood is one of the few--if not the only--native California plant that covers more acreage and is more abundant now than it was before we arrived
• “Protecting” and “saving” land by “setting it aside” and fencing it off from people is one of the worst things you can do for certain kinds of environments
• “Restoration” does not restore anything except maybe self-esteem, this is a feel-good exercise that has become institutionalized. Even our institutions of higher learning have been taken in by this one