Soil is the brown infrastructure for Los Angeles. It has great potential to mitigate current and future climate impacts by sequestering carbon, improving water supply and water quality, supporting plant growth, enhancing food production, and maintaining healthy communities. This study aims to understand the current status of LA soils, identify soil issues, and work with partners to provide a framework to move forward.
Darkness is disappearing from the face of the Earth, blinding wildlife in the light. Since life began, the Earth’s rotation has created cyclical darkness by which living things evolved, tuning instincts and behaviors over millennia. The loss of darkness has inhibited the sensory experience of wildlife, changing the behavior of species and how species interact with one another.
The MA Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) announced on September 28, 2021, that a small, established, and breeding population of the invasive spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) was detected in Worcester County, MA, in the city of Fitchburg. Residents and professionals living and working across the Commonwealth should learn the life stages of the spotted lanternfly and be able to identify their eggs, immatures, and adults.
Grasses have always scared me. Too many species, the flowers too small, the terminology strange and unfamiliar. As an amateur naturalist and very part-time at that, as the demands of work and family limited my wanderings, I had come to terms with the fact that I’d die without knowing my grasses. No longer. Lauren Brown and Ted Elliman’s little book, Grasses, Sedges, Rushes: An Identification Guide, has changed everything.
As someone who spends a lot of her time trying to convince others that insects are incredible animals worth saving, I can still be surprised to hear so much moth disgust. Moths are an incredibly diverse group of insects. North America is home to more than 12,000 species—an astonishing number compared to our relatively paltry 800 or so species of butterflies! Before I start waxing poetic on moths, let’s dive into some basics.
The next time you stroll through your favorite tree-lined street, park, or woods, consider yourself a part of the tree canopy. As a natural interpreter and contributor, you meditate on your surroundings. Trees need our help! Consider trees as large extensions of the organic layer under your feet, which puts you right inside their strategic world.
In The Nature of Oaks, Doug Tallamy hopes to encourage appreciation of the diversity in the web of life by focusing on a single tree that began as an acorn he planted in a pot and transplanted into his yard. Now 18 years old, still very young for an oak tree, Tallamy observes the tree and the many forms of life it supports then shares a month-by-month record of a few visitors.
Winchester, Massachusetts, is situated on the banks of a tranquil, winding river. Like many waterways in New England, the Aberjona River has become home to many non-native and invasive plants that have largely overwhelmed our native plant palette. The Aberjona Initiative, a working group of the Conservation Commission, is tasked with restoring the river and pond banks in town center.
Dr. Enrique Salmón, a member of the Raramuri tribe, is an ethnobotanist and expert on indigenous cultural concepts of the natural world. In his book Iwigara, which is presented as a traditional botany book, he writes about eighty native plants. He mixes scientific and horticultural information, cultural uses, stories handed down, and his personal memories of the plants.
Our group wanted to grow a woodland garden under some shade trees on our property where there currently is heavy growth of English Ivy. What is the best approach to remove the ivy? Read the Eco-Pros’ answers.
Learn about upcoming programs and find out what’s happening within the organization:
We’ve scanned the media – in print and online – for items of interest to ELA’s ecologically focused audience:
