Free Republic

Area will be restored to a native California oak woodlandThe Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District removed about 150 eucalyptus trees in part of a nature preserve last month to replace them with native plants and improve the forest’s fire resilience. The trees were cleared from a 2.5-acre portion of the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve near Lexington Reservoir in Los Gatos as part of the district’s Wildland Fire Resiliency Program, which aims to promote healthy, resilient, fire-adapted ecosystems, reduce wildland fire risk and facilitate the response of fire agencies. “As a land management agency, we have a responsibility to...

There has been an almost total media blackout on this story… In fact, the only place I’ve seen it covered is on Twitter/X. Thank you Elon! Basically, a large part of Chile (a tourist city named Valparaiso) has been completely burned to the ground, and the similarities to what happened to Maui are impossible to ignore. The recent wildfires in Chile have caused widespread devastation, claiming at least 112 lives and leaving hundreds more missing. The fires, which have been burning across the country, have prompted the government to declare a state of emergency. One of the most severely affected...

IT is time for tough-minded tolerance. As a nation of immigrants, Australians easily accept neighbours with different attitudes to matters of morals and their own ways of worship. It is the Australian way to accommodate new cultures. It is the Australian way to take people for who they are, not what they wear, or where they come from. But it is also the Australian way to abhor those who demand to live their lives as they wish and to practise their religion as they choose, but reject the right of everybody else to do the same. This is what a...