Montgomery Woods Initiative
onTogether, these projects — the Montgomery Woods Initiative — are representative of the League’s big vision of landscape-scale forest protection and restoration and inspirational redwood park experiences for all.
Day One of Big Basin’s new era
onVisiting Big Basin Redwoods State Park on its reopening day. While the newly opened area might seem spare to some, it actually represents a ton of work in a short amount of time.
Programs reduce densities of birds preying on threatened marbled murrelets
onResearch funded by Save the Redwoods League suggests that programs designed to help reduce jay populations in areas where marbled murrelets nest, including old-growth coast redwood forests, will give these threatened seabirds a better chance at successful reproduction.
15 great redwood parks for people with disabilities
onWith towering trees and fresh, oxygen-rich air, redwood forests have the power to inspire and enhance the well-being of all people. Our new, free e-guide provides an accessibility overview of 15 redwood and giant sequoia parks.
Two historic projects
onWe celebrate the success of the Forever Forest Campaign and historic projects on the Lost Coast that restored Indigenous guardianship to Tcih-Léh-Dûñ and protected the spectacular Lost Coast Redwoods.
A family tree takes root in conservation
onA pioneering organizer inspires her descendants to protect redwood forests. More than 100 years ago, Eureka’s Laura Perrott Mahan helped galvanize the movement to protect old-growth redwoods in danger of being clear-cut. In recent months, dozens of Mahan descendants and friends continued her legacy by supporting Save the Redwoods’ work to protect coast redwoods — raising funds to help the League purchase Atkins Place in Mendocino County.
Time to spy a rare bird in the sky
onNext time you visit Redwood National and State Parks, you may see California condors taking flight among the redwoods. California condors, magnificent creatures that have been absent from this area for more than a century, were nearly extinct by the 1980s. Thanks to a monumental conservation effort and successful captive breeding program, there are now wild condor populations in Central and Southern California, Arizona, and Baja Mexico. Now, condors may even be returning to Northern California skies.
Giant sequoias’ declining wildfire resilience
onFor millennia, one of the defining characteristics of giant sequoias has been their innate resilience to wildfire. But in the last several years, severe fires in the Sierra Nevada have revealed an unprecedented vulnerability in the groves. League staffers’ publication in a scientific journal is the first to document this new phenomenon.
Thank you to our Forever Forest supporters for changing the redwoods’ fate
onThe ambitious Forever Forest campaign — now concluded — will fund key initiatives to lay the foundation for a new era of redwoods conservation. Even in the face of an unexpected global pandemic, unprecedented wildfires and climate change impacts, and some of the most divisive social and political times in America’s history, we as a community drew strength, inspiration, and resilience from the redwoods we all love.
Returning Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ
onThe League restored Indigenous guardianship to old-growth redwoods on Sinkyone lands. With their complex understandings of the land, based on traditional knowledge and lifeways within which redwood and other ecosystems flourished for millennia, California tribes are natural leaders and partners in land protection and conservation.
Protecting Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ
onTo ensure lasting protection and ongoing stewardship, the League donated and transferred the forest to the Sinkyone Council, and the Council granted the League a conservation easement. Through this partnership, the Sinkyone Council returns Indigenous presence to a land from which Sinkyone people were forcibly removed generations ago.
War stories from the 1960s redwoods conservation movement
onPhotographer and activist Dave Van de Mark helped to establish Redwood National Park by documenting the story of the forest. 50 years later, he is photographing the same places he helped to protect, in a stunning reflection on 50 years of transformation in the forest.
Goodbye asphalt, hello nature
onBy breaking ground, partners are writing a new chapter for a former Orick redwood mill site at the confluence of Prairie Creek and Redwood Creek. For decades the mill site has remained as a scar on the landscape, a reminder of that misguided past. Now that’s changing. The League has begun restoring the site and constructing a southern visitor gateway to Redwood National and State Parks.
Lost Coast Redwoods protected
onFive miles of the California coast and thousands of acres of redwood forest are protected forever. Save the Redwoods League acquired the land in December 2021. Now known as Lost Coast Redwoods, it is the largest privately owned California coastline in the coast redwood range.
Why are prescribed fires a major tool for preventing forest blazes?
onMore than 4 million acres burned in California during the 2020 wildfires, the most in recorded history; the 2021 fire season was on track to match it as of press time.
5 drawings show epic forest restoration in Redwood National and State Parks
onThe on-the-ground work of Redwoods Rising is complex, but these five illustrations sum it up.
Students blossom by learning outside
onAs the pandemic destabilizes funding for outdoor programs nationwide, the League’s free K-12 field trips to the redwoods nourish bodies and minds. Curriculum units combine classroom exercises, outdoor activities on schools’ campuses, and field trips, while lessons integrate math, science, and art.
Governor signs critical wildfire bills
onAs fires burned in 2021, many of these bills were delivered to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk for his signature. He signed two bills that the League supported.
Let’s Make Redwoods Reachable
onEveryone has access needs, whether they are disabled or not. Lack of accessible infrastructure, limited information, and a culture of exclusion in the outdoors prevents so many people from connecting with natural spaces – places that they may find they have more in common with than they thought.
Bringing redwoods science into everyday conversations
onJorge Ramos, a new Councilor for Save the Redwoods League, aims to expand young people’s understanding of carbon cycling and sequestration in ecosystems. “I look forward to working with the members of the League so we can all continue to protect and restore these forests through authentic and inclusive connections with the public.”
