Native vegetation is as important to any environment as the humans and animals that inhabit it, but humans have a tendency to remove what they find undesirable and replace it with what they think they want, regardless of any potentially harmful results. For hundreds of years in California, native trees have been uprooted and replaced by what we deem aesthetically appropriate, which has lead to natural inhabitants either dying or having to relocate.
One Cool Earth, a local nonprofit cofounded by Lionel Johnston, aims to reverse this unsustainable trend. Lionel has deep roots in the San Luis Obispo community, helping to build Kennedy Library and the architecture building while he was a union ironworker. Now he strives to educate about our environment by bringing programs to local elementary, middle and high schools, as well as working with Cal Poly students to plant trees all over campus and surrounding communities.
While working at Paramount’s Hollywood studios in the late 1980s, Johnston used to wander up into the hills and look over Los Angeles. It was during this time that he took notice of how severely humans were “strip mining the state of its native plants and resources... removing oaks and planting ficus trees that required huge amounts of water.” The planted trees wouldn’t survive naturally and were a major drain on resources. They were also prone to disease and infestation, and would often die soon after being planted. To Johnston, we were destroying the natural landscape and replacing the once thriving vegetation with concrete and asphalt. Johnston says humans "don’t really know what the hell they're doing," and to bring foreign trees to an ecosystem can have devastating effects. For example, the Western Wood Duck lives on acorns and finds shelter in hollow trees trunks, and their annual migration from Canada to Laguna Hanson, Mexico dictates that they fly a coastal route all the way South. But with the diminished population of Oaks in California, these beautiful ducks have become all but extinct.
To reverse the trend, One Cool Earth is bringing trees into the community and encouraging people to explore their surroundings. Johnston is a major proponent of “Learn By Doing,” and thinks that rejuvenating California is within our power. He believes that with the right education and support we can all work together to restore balance in nature.
“Every car is a little volcano,” he said. “The CO2 emissions we’ve produced in the last couple hundred years are equivalent to 600,000 years of volcanic eruptions... We need to replant, wherever possible, the native plants that were once here.”
Recently, WOW Team joined One Cool Earth at Laguna Lake to help plant native trees and preserve the environment. In May, a group met at the Cal Poly sports fields to re-hang fallen drip lines. One Cool Earth has an agreement with the ASI Grounds Crew to use the space behind one of their equipment sheds to grow saplings that will eventually be planted elsewhere on campus.
According to Johnston, nobody at One Cool Earth is sure this will solve the crisis, but an honest effort goes a long way, and trying to make a difference is better than letting something this important wash over us. For more information, visit onecoolearth.org. ■
