Wildfire policy is forest policy is climate policy
onredwoods are an important part of climate change policy
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Video: Redwoods play a key role in the fight against climate change
onNewly published research confirms the exceptionally large role that redwood forests can play in California’s strategy to address climate change.
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What Does the UN’s Report on Massive Species Extinction Rates Mean for the Redwoods?
onIn the most comprehensive assessment of its kind, the United Nations (UN) paints a bleak picture, describing a future in which 1 million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction — unless we make transformative changes now.
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Discovering the Climate Change Resilience of Coast Redwood Forests
onAfter a decade studying the impacts of climate change throughout redwood forests, Emily Burns, PhD, and Stephen Sillett, PhD, share new insight into how coast redwood trees are growing today. See the remarkable new findings about second-growth forests.
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An Earth Day for Science
onThis year’s Earth Day theme was focused on environmental and climate literacy, which means that we need to make sure everyone is educated on the impacts of climate change on our planet and the actions we can take to protect and sustain our environment.
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High School Students as Citizen Scientists
onIf you ask high school students what the impacts of climate change have been, they can tell you that the polar ice caps are melting, that we have extreme weather, and that California has been in a drought for the past few years. But if you ask them how climate change will affect our forests and the plants and animals that live in them, they find it harder to come up with an answer.
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Future Coastal Climate Not Cool for Redwood Forests
onIn a study published in the research journal Global Change Biology, climate scientists from the University of California and NatureServe conclude that a warmer future with normal rainfall on California’s coast will leave coast redwoods south of San Francisco Bay with significantly different climate than they have experienced for decades.
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New Study Provides Coast Redwood Climate Forecast
onUnderstanding how climate change impacts the world’s tallest forest is like assembling an incredibly large jigsaw puzzle; the full picture emerges slowly, one piece at time. But occasionally, a critical piece falls into place…
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Redwood Research Proposals Wanted
onSave the Redwoods League uses redwood science to guide our conservation work and we are ready to invest in new studies that will help us save the redwoods. Since 1997, we have supported redwood and giant sequoia forest research on … Continued
Lower Genetic Diversity Puts Giants at Risk
onRecent League-funded research by Richard Dodd, an Environmental Science Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, confirms that northern groves (north of the Kings River drainage) have lower genetic diversity than central and southern groves. This could have profound consequences for long-term conservation strategies for the species, especially considering the changing global climate. Learn more about this research.
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Citizen Scientists Take Over
onLast week, I participated in the first-ever citizen science conference put on by the Citizen Science Association. This major event attracted over 600 people from 26 different countries! Science buzz was in the air, and the talks covered a range … Continued
Redwood Weather
onRCCI researcher Wendy Baxter describes below why we are tracking weather in the woods: Monitoring the local weather and long-term climate is an integral part of the Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative (RCCI). Beginning in 2011, scientists from UC … Continued
77% of Birds and Climate Change Studies Use Community Science
onThis study speaks to the incredible need to continue community science projects because they are critical to learning about the planet in a rapidly changing environment, and the volunteer contributions are significantly pushing the research field ahead.
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Fern Watch Heating Up
onI’ve been keeping a close watch on Western sword fern, the most common plant in redwood forest, for about a decade now and it appears that the recent weather is taking its toll on the ferns. Through our climate change tracking project, Fern Watch, we … Continued
Salamanders in the News
onIt’s not often that salamanders make the New York Times. But last week, the ‘Science’ section featured an article on a study investigating the role of salamanders in the global carbon cycle. Basically, salamanders are among the top predators in … Continued
Our Redwood Classrooms
onBay Area residents got a sneak peek into the hopes and dreams of the Department of the Interior last week when Secretary Sally Jewell came to Crissy Field (external link) to announce the department’s new campaign to connect the next … Continued
A Redwood of a Blog: How the Giant Trees Grow
onRCCI’s nursery experiments and tree ring analyses are essential to understanding the past and future of the redwood forest, but it is the trees themselves that tell us about its present. By establishing 16 large plots in old-growth forests throughout … Continued
Climate change is good for the redwoods…But is it climate change and is it good?
onI’ve spent much of the past week thinking about our Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative, and what our recent results mean for the future of the redwood forest. As with any good scientific research, the first phase of RCCI raised far … Continued
Climate Change Discoveries Make Media Splash
onYou may have heard about the surprising discoveries of the League’s Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative (RCCI) program, which drew unprecedented media coverage yesterday. Did you see the coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the … Continued
A Summer of Ferns
onThe best part of the year for any field ecologist like myself, is the stretch of long summer days spent outside collecting data. Over the past two months, I journeyed into the coast redwood forest to take measurements in our … Continued