Flying into Los Angeles, over the Santa Monica Mountains everything was green – alive all the way to the dark blue sea. As soon as the plane veered south towards the airport, the vista became a checkerboard of houses and buildings tied up with highways. Take this scene in on an emotional level and you can see that our wilderness, the great outdoors, is what makes the Santa Monica Mountains so beautiful.
The best way to define the condition of this wilderness is to track its biodiversity. What other creatures live here, and how many of each species are here? Choices we make as residents, visitors, and consumers can help us maintain and grow diversity.
In the Living Lightly Guide, we highlight the glory of mountains, grasslands, shoreline habitat, littoral habitat, and the open sea and endeavor to share ways to maintain the well-being of this complex ecosystem.