Growing up all the way through high school, woods, lakes, oceans and rivers are the places my friends and I played every day. Our days spent involved catching crawdads in creeks, swinging from vines like Tarzan and fishing or tubing in remote rivers. But those days are gone and I lament when I think of how my children and now my grandchildren live in our concrete jungle, with very little of nature around them to explore.
Growing up all the way through high school, woods, lakes, oceans and rivers are the places my friends and I played every day. Our days spent involved catching crawdads in creeks, swinging from vines like Tarzan and fishing or tubing in remote rivers. But those days are gone and I lament when I think of how my children and now my grandchildren live in our concrete jungle, with very little of nature around them to explore.
When it comes to talking about our local habitat, pristine is no longer an option in describing our beautiful surroundings. Even looking east into the mountains that guard our shores, the need to supply power to us inhabitants has stripped away much of our landscape. With the Sunrise Power Link, and what we thought would be our eco-friendly future, solar power is now large massive farms that destroy the terrain and many of the traveling birds and migrating flocks of butterflies.
Many organizations and people work very hard to balance the scales of nature and humankind. They work diligently in restoring natural habitat, making it accessible for us to enjoy and educate us on how we can help preserve these small pockets of wild refuge.
There is an abundance of nature in East County for people to enjoy while it supports our local wildlife. Much of it is natural and some of it is manmade, but it still helps to keep the balance between man and nature.
In watching the evening news a few weeks ago, I watched a two-minute blurb on how Lake Jennings is suffering losses when it comes to the recreation services it provides at the lake. As one of our regions go-to places for walks, fishing or spending the day with the family outdoors, it reminded me of one important detail.
There are many ways to be a part of helping to keep our local nature spots there for us all to enjoy. Bird watchers, hikers, bikers and those that love a place of beauty for a little piece of sanctuary in life depend on these local resources for health, pleasure and in many cases holding on to sanity in a crazy world.
With many of our local parks, there are various ways to help. A majority of them depend on the working hands of volunteers to keep them up, running, and assessable to the public. Just going to these places helps them thrive, but there are many other ways to become involved in keeping them alive and well for the future. Many require docents to educate all generations on why these natural resources are important to our survival. Most of them depend heavily on volunteers who do everything from bringing awareness to the community to going down into the riverbeds removing the constant flow of trash and debris left behind or washed in by our bad habits.
Over the course of the summer, we are going to work on highlighting East County’s precious resources and hopefully in doing so, not only encourage people to visit these places, but also to get involved. It is already shameful that we have to travel to see nature at its best, but it is horrific if we allow what little natural parks we have get lost in our own humanity.
When it comes to our national, state or county parks, there is one thing that is a guarantee. If we do not use our parks, we will lose them. Life has turned the tables and now in order for us to keep what natural habitat we have, we have to utilize it or funds will dry up as fast as the San Diego River during a drought.
