Saturday, January 20, 2007

For half of his life, longtime Claremont resident Ronald D. Quinn tinkered with the idea of writing a book about California’s quintessential ecological community, chaparral. A research scientist and biological sciences educator, Mr. Quinn’s boots and brain have been muddied with the subject for more than 30 years, and after countless “fits and starts,” Introduction to California Chaparral has joined the landscape of other California Natural History Guides.

Co-authored with Sterling C. Keeley, a botany professor at the University of Hawaii, the book seeks to provide basic information about the chaparral community and coax readers toward a greater understanding and appreciation of its beauty, complexity and resiliency.  This understanding, as written in the preface, “encompasses the plants and animals that make up the chaparral community, the climate that shaped it, and the role of fire, drought, and floods that are recurring parts of this system.” Additionally, the authors seek to provide insight into the problems caused by the increasing urban/wilderness interface.

“The beauty and utility of chaparral is tempered by inherent problems and dangers,” it is written in Chapter 6, “Living with Chaparral.”

“We wanted people living in Chaparral, or who were thinking about living in it, to make informed decisions about living there,” commented Mr. Quinn, whose fits and starts in getting the book started were stimulated toward true momentum by the 2003 San Diego fire. “There’s great advantage [to chaparral], but it’s also risky.”

And so, unearthing 30 years worth of documents in his filing cabinets and calling upon many more years of personal experience, research, education and teaching, Mr. Quinn, a Cal Poly, Pomona professor, launched the task of distilling his vast knowledge base into a source that would be helpful and informative to readers. 

“It’s much easier to talk about something you know something about. It’s much harder to talk about something you know a lot about,” said Mr. Quinn about the daunting task of condensing his chaparral expertise.

Little did he know, at the time, that Ms. Keeley was also working on a similar manuscript. Both college professors were seeking to produce a concise text for use within their own classrooms and for the broader audience, and when the University of California Press informed them of their parallel efforts, they joined forces.

Introduction to California Chaparral is aimed at the general reader who wishes to learn more about this important environment. It is also an excellent resource and field guide for birdwatchers, natural history enthusiasts, any-level school teachers preparing for field trips and classroom study and even professors, biologists and managers who have relocated to southern California and might be wondering, “Where are the trees? What is this stuff anyway?” joked Mr. Quinn. 

With colorful photographs aplenty as well as illustrations by Marianne Wallace, a local natural science author and illustrator, the book guides readers through the physical features of the chaparral environment, including where it’s found, its relation to coastal sage scrub, climate and rainfall factors, fire patterns and much more. It then examines common species of plants and animals within this community and, finally, it delves into issues and concerns that arise from the interaction between humans and chaparral. Both authors have centered much of their focus on ecological processes within chaparral throughout their professional lives, especially those related to fire, which is the subject examined most closely in the book. Mr. Quinn, who grew up fascinated by the wildfires that raged around his boyhood neighborhood in the La Crescenta Valley, remarked that one of the reasons this particular book is unique is that is revolves around fire.

Coincidentally—or perhaps inevitably—during the writing of this book, a chaparral wildfire came within a block of Mr. Quinn’s Claremont home. Certainly, knowing what he does about chaparral and fire—“chaparral can and will burn, and under extreme conditions it will not stop,” he said—he was not too surprised at the blaze.

“I usually go somewhere to conduct my research. This time, my work came to me,” said Mr. Quinn, referring to the 2003 fires that destroyed many homes and acres of wilderness in Claremont and the surrounding cities.

Mr. Quinn, like many people, enjoys living close to nature. But there must be an understanding, it is written on page 280, that “As more and more people have exercised this choice, the associated dangers have grown many times over.”

“So long as the human population of California continues to grow exponentially, as it has done for the past 150 years, the forces that have pushed development into chaparral will continue,” the authors wrote, also noting in this paragraph spanning pages 280 and 281 that urban sprawl into chaparral is the “path of least resistance for horizontal growth.”

In this section of the book, titled “Options for Wise Growth,” Mr. Quinn and Ms. Keeley expound upon safety issues that arise in public and private planning decisions related to chaparral areas. They also explore options for reducing the dangers inherent in urban-wilderness interface environments.

“I want people to think about chaparral. Most people see it everyday, but they don’t think about it. The average person won’t notice it until it’s on fire, and eventually it will be,” Mr. Quinn remarked.

Introduction to California Chaparral concludes with a segment on “The Value of Chaparral,” in which the authors further discuss the importance of preserving as much of this environment as possible, as well as specific means for doing so.

“For California, the future of chaparral and our future as residents here are inextricably linked,” it is written on page 290, continuing later on the page, “Sooner or later we must strike a deliberate balance between the spreading urban and ex-urban centers of California, and the adjacent chaparral in their path…Urbanization cannot continue to consume chaparral and other natural areas indefinitely, and few people would wish to see all of the remaining natural beauty of this exceptionally attractive state that falls outside of existing reserves consumed by development.”

Along a similar line of thinking, Mr. Quinn is pondering a future book project that examines how the landscape of the American southwest looked in the past, why it has changed and what this implies for how it will continue to change in the future.

“A good way to imagine the future of California is to find out how we got where we are, and on what trajectory we will head into the future,” Mr. Quinn said.

As ideas for his next book percolate, Mr. Quinn will continue teaching in a “retired but not retired” manner at Cal Poly, Pomona, where he has taught for 37 years. Claremont became his home in 1971, shortly after he joined the faculty of Cal Poly at age 26. Having completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University, he had become smitten with the flavor of the New Jersey town, and upon arriving back in southern California—he was born in Glendale, a fifth generation Californian—he felt the loss of the quaint, tree-filled town, particularly mourning the absence of a true city center.

“In California, there’s no ‘here’ here,” he said, adding that when he discovered Claremont, he exclaimed, “Here it is!”

On Sunday, January 28 from 1 to 3 p.m., Mr. Quinn will conduct a book signing and give a lecture at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden. Members pay $10 for the event; nonmembers pay $12. Pre-registration is required. Information: 625-8767, extension 224.