Aug 7, 2023: Travis Longcore on Rarities and Relics
Rarities and Relics
Historical Ecology as a Guide to the Lost and Remnant Vegetation Types of the Los Angeles Basin and the Channel Islands
To be a naturalist in Los Angeles is to be constantly searching to understand and imagine the diversity and wonder of a landscape sealed over by urbanization. We do this to understand the past and envision the landscape’s future potential. Drawing on decades of interdisciplinary research involving maps, herbarium specimens, photographs, and other archives, a picture of the pre-urban landscape emerges, one home to and managed by its peoples for thousands of years, and still persisting in relics and rarities today.
Travis Longcore is Adjunct Professor in the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and Science Director of The Urban Wildlands Group. He is a leader of the Los Angeles Landscape History project (lalandscapehistory.org), a long-term research effort linking the region’s universities and tribal representatives to map the human and natural ecology of the Los Angeles Basin. He has related research projects on the rare plants of the Channel Islands and their historical landscapes.
See the recording on YouTube.