What remains of Malibu’s chaparral wilderness is its most valuable legacy, which includes hundreds of extraordinary drought tolerant plant species that need no help from us to live, require no irrigation, no fertilizer, no gardeners, and feed over 100 indigenous bird species and larger creatures that are completely dependent on these extraordinary plants that have evolved here over at least 14 million years. But the people who just moved here are typically unaware that common and inexpensive building materials like concrete, metals, glass and tiles will simply never burn even if the native chaparral grew right up to the walls of their homes. So with ignorance of the most rudimentary knowledge of materials, architecture and botany, that any child could have easily acquired, people still leave wood exteriors exposed or put cotton curtains in their windows and expose themselves to risks for no reason whatsoever. Finally the insurance industry got tired of picking up the bill for such ignorance, so they got the fire department, who doesn’t employ even one botanist, to enforce the wholesale destruction of tens of thousands of acres of this extraordinarily beautiful carpet of evergreen wilderness, that creates the beauty that holds these mountains together. Extreme 200 to 400 foot clearings are being required where a 30-foot separation has been repeatedly proven to fully protect wood from flames. In this arid environment, once destroyed, the native plants will not restore themselves because more aggressive invasive plants will first take over the soils, and then dry out each summer increasing fire risks. Significantly the cost to restore native plants no doubt exceeds the generosity of anyone living in Malibu, perhaps costing far more than the value of their houses, and further would take decades of work to accomplish.
Since people can’t see that no conflict needs to exist between their constructions and the environment, they promote a very destructive assault; and the environmentalists in turn try to rescue whatever they can from this inconsiderate spirit, which naturally has to exclude the destructive clearing and bulldozing of these mountain treasures; all because we can’t conceive of building in a way that is compatible with nature and restorative of the natural environment; and these destructive conflicts are even written into our extraordinarily abusive building and fire codes. I can see no way to encourage change for such unbelievable stubbornness and ignorance; but there is little doubt that this is an environmentally sensitive habitat area (ESHA) and its irreplaceable loss would be by far the greater tragedy and a permanent loss that could never be undone.