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Equity, Access, and Belonging

These values are at the heart of our mission at Save the Redwoods League. Whether we’re nurturing reciprocal partnerships with Tribes, removing barriers so new visitors can explore redwood parks, or fostering a welcoming and inclusive culture within our organization, we create opportunities for everyone to experience, care for, and shape the future of redwood forests—and share in the many benefits these landscapes bring.

Guiding Principles

We embed Equity in conservation: We advance better outcomes for forests and people by building reciprocal partnerships, supporting shared decision-making, and elevating community needs and perspectives—especially those of Indigenous peoples and other groups historically excluded from conservation.
We expand Access to meaningful experiences: Everyone deserves the chance to experience the redwoods. We expand access infrastructure and address challenges such as transportation, cost, and lack of familiarity, ensuring everyone has opportunities to explore nature.
We foster Belonging in the forest and beyond: When people feel a sense of belonging in redwood forests, this connection deepens into care. We work with communities—especially those with cultural, historical, or regional ties to these landscapes—to shape park experiences so everyone can feel welcome, represented, and at home.

Our Commitments in Action

Tree branches burn to the left as a man looks toward the fire

Tribal Partnerships

Young girl reaching hand out to feel a redwood frond.

Redwood Rides

Education

Boy with adult volunteer showing redwood nature activity sheet

Redwood Connect Grants

A group of young people in dressy outdoor gear pose for a photo

I'll Go If You Go Podcast

Confronting History, Advancing Change

To realize our vision of a more just and equitable world, we must also fully reckon with the past. In the early 20th century, some of our organization’s founders were leaders in the discriminatory and oppressive pseudoscience of eugenics. Their racist beliefs also permeated the conservation movement they helped advance. We completely reject these beliefs—and are committed to illuminating this history and ensuring our work today reflects our values.

Historically:

Conservation policies and approaches largely excluded California Tribes and ignored the extensive value of Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
Redwood parks were designed with a narrow segment of society in mind, offering a limited array of experiences and incomplete historical information that excluded some people and made others feel unwelcome or disconnected from the outdoors.
Early conservation efforts caused economic suffering to rural communities that had depended on extraction industries.

Today:

We prioritize meaningful partnerships with Indigenous communities, helping to restore Tribal access, stewardship, and ownership of forest lands, and learning from the traditional practices under which redwood forests flourished for millennia.
We create park experiences that are resonant and accessible to all, working with park partners to include diverse perspectives in programming and interpretation. We also remove barriers that prevent marginalized communities from connecting with redwood forests and experiencing belonging in nature.
We advance conservation projects with local socioeconomic development in mind, while also helping rural communities become more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

Through this work, we strengthen the vitality and resilience of both communities and nature. When more people feel welcome in the outdoors and have a voice in redwoods conservation, forests thrive. When forests thrive, so do people.

Join us. You belong among the redwoods, too.

Be part of the movement.

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