 |
Photo by Richard Dickey WWW.FERALFLOWERS.COM |
Class taps flower power to preserve habitat
By Julie Jaskol
UCLA Today
For most of the year, the gently undulating ridge near Gorman serves as a largely unremarkable backdrop to Interstate 5. But for a few special weeks in early spring, the drab hillside erupts in poppies, lupines and other brilliantly hued wildflowers, transforming the landscape with vibrant living color.
“It draws people like a magnet,” said Los Angeles City Planner Michael O’Brien. “People pull off the road and let their little kids run in the flowers. You know it’s the best thing they’ve ever seen.”
Fearing this area might be lost to development, he decided to enlist his UCLA Extension class in an effort to save it. What resulted could ultimately help local environmentalists keep this special wildflower corridor from being paved over.
As a longtime instructor for the Landscape Architecture Program, O’Brien leads an advanced design studio course on environmental analysis and planning. Each year, he has students collaborate on a preservation plan for an endangered or degraded bit of landscape. Last quarter, he chose the wildflower fields of Gorman.
At first, his 23 students were not thrilled about the hillside, which served as the site of Christo’s “Umbrellas” installation in 1991. All had driven through the area, but, like most passersby, never really noticed it. On their first field trip last September, they found it dry, brown and utterly uninspiring.
But the more research they did into the wildlife, the geography and the photographic records of the bloom, the more excited they became.
“For all of us, it was a pretty eye-opening experience,” said third-year student Simone Rodman. “We got to know the mysteries of a place that looks relatively unassuming. Now I see it as a really rich area in its diversity and microclimate.”
After 10 weeks of intensive analysis, the students wrote a 92-page report that presents the best case for setting aside 2,800 acres of open space along a five-mile stretch of Gorman Post Road as a wildflower preserve, even though they themselves have never witnessed the bloom there.
The road, which parallels Interstate 5, is uniquely located atop the San Andreas Fault and at the intersection of five different geological and four botanical regions, students discovered. Many native plants and at least two endangered animals live there.
The report, which students recently presented to the Mountain Communities Town Council, has generated widespread local interest, especially since there are proposals for large residential developments and a business park for the area.
“It was a wonderful piece of work,” said local resident Jan de Leeuw, an environmental activist and a UCLA faculty member who chairs the Department of Statistics. “I was very impressed, and so was everyone else at the local meetings. Having a report that goes to such considerable depth in support of preservation is rare. Most research of this quality is done by developers who can afford to hire consultants.”
The students’ deep concern for the area also raised the profile of this issue, de Leeuw said. “I know my colleagues in the big environmental organizations have picked up on it.”
This isn’t the first preservation issue that O’Brien’s students have championed. Previous classes have proposed parkland along the Los Angeles River, developed an open space plan for Northeast Los Angeles and created restoration plans for Whitney Canyon in Santa Clarita and Gopher Canyon in the Santa Susana Mountains. Another class proposal was to create a park in the Mt. Washington area. Elyria Park was actually built.
“Students get the real-world experience of presenting information in a way that stakeholders can use to better their environment,” said Alexis Slafer, who directs the certificate program, regarded as one of the most prominent of its kind in the country.
“People really care about the land,” said Rodman, who is looking forward to seeing the springtime show in person. “No question about it — I’ll see it differently next time I drive by on Highway 5.”To see photographs of the lush wildflowers of Gorman, go to www.FeralFlowers.com. |
