My first nature walk

I went on a nature walk for the first time last month. I saw it on FoLAR’s website, and I signed up because I had been feeling weird about criticizing how “natural” the proposed development for the LA River is — without actually knowing anything about river ecology. I have always been impressed with thoseoutdoorsy friends who go hiking and can name basically every plant that we stumble into, so I decided to get some education in that realm.

The walk was at the Frog Spot, FoLAR’s community center on one of the three soft-bottom segments of the River. Because no one else showed up, Liliana Griego, policy associate at FoLAR gave me a private tour.

~ Takeaways ~

  • In order to maintain the channelized river, someone (the USACE? City agencies?) would regularly bulldoze new growth and dredge the collected water to lay more concrete. But then the plants would keep growing back, keep poking through the concrete. Liliana said something about FoLAR and other environmental groups taking over the maintenance of those areas — though I’m not sure if it was a formal process.
  • Prior to the tour, I was confused about environmental scientists’ preference for native over invasive species. If a plant travels to a new place and adapts to its surroundings, what is so bad about that? Even if it replaces a native plant, so what? Neighborhoods change, for both humans and nonhuman life, I thought. Clearly, the critique is more nuanced than that. It basically comes down to what the newcomer plant offers to the local ecosystem. The Arundo is considered “invasive” because it sucks water away from willow trees, which are an integral part of the riparian habitat (providing shade and homes) — while not providing any substantive benefit except for modest erosion prevention. The mustard seed plant, on the hand, naturalized into the SoCal riparian environment. Though it was introduced by man (Spanish missionaries), it’s hard to say that the plant is an outsider to be removed — especially as it has been in the environment for two centuries.
  • The indignant criticism comes when humans bring in species for material benefit, yet end up disrupting the environment in a way that even harms themselves.
  • It’s HARD to define precisely what ecological harmony looks like for a given region, because there are so many moving parts. The appearance of a new plant will always have pros and cons. Even the aforementioned Arundo:
    (i) it was introduced because its fibrous roots offered erosion control,
    (ii)
    capture carbon to make desertified soil fertile again, and
    (iii) continue to be promoted as biofuel by the energy industry.
    Yet experts consider their invasive characteristics —
    (i) lack of food or habitat sources it offers,
    (ii) highly flammable, and
    (iii) outcompeting more valuable native plants
    — to overshadow those benefits.
  • I suppose this is where a progressive revisionist would jump at the chance to say, see, the Native Americans had an understanding of the land, unlike those white settlers who stupidly introduced a bunch of shitty plants and built their settlement rightnextto an alluvial river. And I suppose I agree. I am fascinated by such examples of indigenous populations’ traditions proving better than contemporary practices. I definitely believe in the merit of the knowledge accumulated by a culture over generations, and hesitate to completely discredit a practice until there is some *scientific* explanation on why it works.
  • No naturalist advocates for a complete restoration to the Tongva LA River.
  • It was fun to learn the uses and contexts of the plants and trees right in front of me. I have already told the stories as interesting trivia to family and friends. Moreover, a single hour on a nature walk had left me with a much better understanding of my habitat. I finally understand the appeal of bird watching or tree leaf-collecting — those activities are the practice of taking a moment to be curious about background props that the eye usually skips over.

My Wordpress blog hosts a gallery of photos that I took on the nature walk: https://audncity.com/2017/08/09/my-first-nature-walk/


Originally published at audncity.com on August 9, 2017.

Aud'ncity

Hi, I'm Audrey. Welcome to my personal blog, where I share my explorations and reflections of cities and various urban topics.

Audrey Younsook Jang

Written by

Aud'ncity

Aud'ncity

Hi, I'm Audrey. Welcome to my personal blog, where I share my explorations and reflections of cities and various urban topics.

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