Member Column

by Jaetaik Yoo

LW contributor

Drought devastates nature.

All life—people, animals, fish and trees—need water to survive. We basically get the water from the sky. So the rain is quite important to people as well as nature.

But rain is irregular.

Sometimes it floods, and sometimes there is drought for a long time.

Wild grasses in the field or mountains can sprout only when the there is enough water. The fields and mountains need the wild grasses and trees. The grasses and trees feed animals and sometimes serve as shelters and nests.

Livestock can also live on grasses. And people live on livestock. So the chain of water, grass and trees, animals and humankind makes a complete cycle.

Drought can devastate nature. Grasses and trees can hardly survive in a long drought. Furthermore drought leads to destructive wildfires that burn thousands of acres of trees and property.

Drought can even turn fertile land into a desert.

Severe drought should remind us of how important water is for nature and to extinguish wildfires. It should prompt us to use water sparingly.

When we have enough rain, we have good opportunities to enjoy the spring awakening of beautiful nature with its thick grasses, trees and beautiful flowers on the field.

However, this spring it has not have rained sufficiently for wildflowers to blossom.

I went to Walker Canyon and Lake Elsinore to view wildflowers a few weeks ago, but the trip was in vain.

Viewing beautiful nature helps our minds be happy and warms our hearts.

In that sense, we are unlucky this spring because of COVID-19 as well as a long drought.

A bad environment could devastate not only nature, but also people.