Super Bloom conditions in California only come around once in a while, but when they do, California’s hills become a palette of color with thousands of wildflowers. Poppies, white lilacs, hyacinth and more bloom in the spring after a winter of heavy rains. However, this natural phenomenon is also in danger due to direct and indirect human activity. Tourism, climate change and the effects of environmental colonialism have all influenced the wildflower bloom over the years, and the rise of Social Media hasn’t helped.
More rural communities in California have always had a tourism boom during wildflower season. Although these booms can occasionally lead to a positive effect on the local economy, it doesn’t last and leads to more negatives than tends to be worth it. With the influx of tourism, humans directly affect these wildflower habitats. Upticks of tourism lead to major traffic jams and destruction of entire ecosystems which can have consequences for years to follow. Social media exacerbated these issues even more. With influencers hungry for an IG pic amongst wildflowers, they demonstrate harmful behaviors and encourage even more people to travel to see this natural wonder. As people flood into these areas, they trample the flowers, pick the flowers, and leave trash out and about. Wildflowers are extremely fragile so picking them and stepping on them will leave them wilted, dead, and unable to procreate, leaving future years with less and less wildflowers.
Ensuring the safety of these wildflowers is important for more than just the beauty that the super bloom provides. Abundant wildflowers help prevent soil erosion, provide necessary habitats for pollinators critical to our food system, and establish healthy ecosystems. Having enough wildflowers for that, however, will get increasingly difficult in the coming years due to climate change, agriculture, development and damage from tourism. Winters have become warmer and drier, decreasing the diversity of wildflowers, which are already being out-competed by invasive species. These invasive grasses and mustard plants suffocate native wildflowers, and coupled with a decrease in diversity and damage from wildfires, ecosystems are completely changing.
Native people in California have been on these lands and have experienced wildflower super blooms for thousands of years, with thriving pollinator habitats. As U.S businesses, enabled by government entities, continue to develop the last of these ecosystems, continuing to colonize these lands, it is indigenous peoples who take up the burden of opposing it, or cleaning up the ecological disasters left by development. Indigenous people in the American West have tended to these lands for thousands of years. They used controlled burns throughout California fields and forests, which promoted consistent flower regrowth, cleared overgrowth out of forests, and helped prevent wildfire. When colonizers came to the West they forcibly removed Native peoples and prohibited them from continuing their ecological practices which they had been using for over 10,000 years. Colonizers instead plundered the land, leading to disastrous consequences we are seeing today with California’s drought and out of control wildfires.
Hopefully California’s wildflower super bloom will continue to be a natural wonder for years to come. However, that does require collective stewardship to the land and engaging in practices that allow these wildflowers and pollinator habitats to thrive. By appreciating the super bloom from afar, planting your own wildflowers using plants indigenous to California, and uplifting and engaging with Indigenous voices who have been tending this land far longer and with more success, we will hopefully be able to see our wildflowers continue to grow throughout the state each spring. If you do feel the need for that perfect insta pic with flowers, check out the gazania fields in Griffith Park. Gazanias are an invasive flower that are suffocating the native plants in the area. Feel free to trample these flowers, grab that picture, and help the bees and birds while you’re at it.
SOURCES
Reyes-Velarde, Alejandra (March 14, 2019). "Instagram-hungry crowds are destroying the super bloom". LA Times. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-02-09/superbloom-wildflowers-poppy-california-ecosystem-nature
https://www.vogue.com/article/saving-the-super-bloom-why-californias-wildflowers-are-under-siege
https://www.kqed.org/science/63208/climate-change-threatens-wildflower-diversity-in-california
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2022/09/21/how-colonialism-spawned-and-continues-to-exacerbate-the-climate-crisis/
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