As I write there is barely over a week left to raise $8 million dollars to pay a developer to purchase 104 acres on the San Marcos Preserve. Bulldozers are literally standing by to start construction on eight luxury homes. I might sound a wee bit ambitious but considering it was $20 million six weeks ago, I’m holding on to hope.
I’ve been walking on the Preserve for 15 years. It’s my escape. Its where I go to ease my mind and find peace and calm. There are other places I can go but this area is special so it’s important to me. It’s also important to you…you just might not know it yet. Edward Abbey in Desert Solitaire said “we need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope”. He also said “Wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.” That’s heady stuff, but I know I’m not the only one who goes outdoors for escape…have you visited a National Park in the summer?
But I’m not here to spell doom & gloom…I’m here to encourage you to donate a few million dollars (in small increments if need be). So, where do I begin? First let me ask, do we need eight more luxury homes in Santa Barbara? In the 15 years I mentioned earlier, the Preserve has burned twice. And I don’t mean little brush type fires. We’re in year-round fire season in California in part because of rising annual temperatures but also because we have built so deep into lands that were meant to burn. Chaparral and foothill foliage have depended on heat and fire to regenerate for millennia. It’s what keeps them alive. It provided for the original inhabitants…the Chumash…and it provides for us. Eight owners will pay for these new homes and then we will pay for the resources to save them every time a fire threatens. Which, if you live here…you know is often.