giant sequoia

Sam Hodder with one of the giant sequoia at Alder Creek.

We Have to Save This Place

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And now, we can announce the pending acquisition of the largest unprotected sequoia grove. Alder Creek is located near Camp Nelson off Highway 190, and is surrounded by the Giant Sequoia National Monument. It’s no exaggeration to call Alder Creek a crown jewel of the giant sequoia. In both size and conservation value, it is comparable to the famous Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park’s iconic giant sequoia stand.

Alder Creek contains hundreds of ancient giant sequoia, nearly 500 wider than six feet in diameter. Photo by Max Forster, Save the Redwoods League

Save the Redwoods League to Protect “Crown Jewel” of the Remaining Giant Sequoia Forests

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Save the Redwoods League today announced its opportunity to purchase Alder Creek, the largest remaining privately owned giant sequoia property in the world. The 530-acre Alder Creek property contains hundreds of ancient giant sequoia, 483 of which have a diameter of six feet or larger, including the Stagg Tree, the fifth-largest tree known in the world. Alder Creek is 200 miles from Los Angeles and is surrounded by Giant Sequoia National Monument.

Bring a Giant Sequoia into Your Classroom

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Everyone at Save the Redwoods League is so excited about the new giant sequoia curriculum for K-12 classrooms offered by the California State Parks PORTS® program, which stands for Parks Online Resources for Teachers and Students. This distance learning program features the giant sequoia of Calaveras Big Trees State Park in its new unit and uses an innovative system incorporating interactive media and virtual reality platforms to teach about the ecosystems, wildlife, and history of California State Parks.

Photo by Belkin International, courtesy of California State Parks.

Digital Field Trips to Giant Sequoia

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Save the Redwoods League and California State Parks have collaborated to develop a new study unit focusing on the impacts and challenges facing giant sequoia. The innovative distance learning program, developed in honor of the League’s Centennial Year, will transport students around the world through virtual field trips to Calaveras Big Trees State Park, a nearly 6,500 acre preserve in the central Sierra that protects two spectacular groves of mighty old-growth giant sequoia.

Visitors in the 1920s stand among colossal giant sequoia in what is now Calaveras Big Trees State Park. Photographer unknown, circa 1920s, Save the Redwoods League photograph collection, BANC PIC 2006.030. The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.

Celebrating 112 Years of the Antiquities Act

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On June 8, 1906, exactly 112 years ago today, the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, signed the Antiquities Act into law. It was this act that allowed the protection of places such as Muir Woods National Monument.

This spectacular tree is among Red Hill Grove’s 110 ancient giant sequoia. Photo by Paolo Vescia

Save the Redwoods League Has Secured the Opportunity to Protect One of the World’s Last Privately Owned Giant Sequoia Forests

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Save the Redwoods League, the only nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting and stewarding coast redwood and giant sequoia forests in California, today announced that it has negotiated an agreement to purchase and protect the 160-acre Red Hill property, one of the two largest unprotected giant sequoia properties in the world. The property, on the South Fork of the Tule River, contains 110 ancient giant sequoia and provides a critical habitat for a variety of imperiled species including the Pacific fisher, Sierra marten and California spotted owl. Red Hill is located less than 200 miles from Los Angeles.

Teresa Baker at Muir Woods National Monument.

Teresa Baker Blazes Trail for Racial Diversity in Parks

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“America is changing demographically,” said Teresa Baker, founder of the African American Nature & Parks Experience. “People of color will soon be in the majority, and we need to do everything possible to connect them to the outdoors, to help them experience the power of nature.”

Emily Burns, PhD, League's former Director of Science, reaches for the captivating cream-colored needles of an albino sprout growing out of a redwood. “It lacks chlorophyll, so it’s white, and it’s caused by a mutation on that particular sprout’s DNA,” she said. Further genomic research could confirm hypotheses that albino sprouts are more than parasites. It’s clear that the deeper we go into the redwood genome, the more we’ll know. Photo by Paolo Vescia

Mapping the Redwood Genomes

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Save the Redwoods League is leading research to fully sequence the coast redwood and giant sequoia genomes — for the first time — utilizing conifer genetic sequencing techniques unavailable until now. By the end of this five-year project, the genome sequences and the screening tools developed will allow researchers to quickly assess genetic diversity in redwood forests to inform management plans that restore the health and resilience of these forests throughout their natural ranges as they face environmental stressors such as climate change.

Sequoia National Park.

New Initiative to Sequence the Redwood Genomes

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We are sequencing the coast redwood and giant sequoia genomes. While the first steps in this project will happen in the laboratory, the goal is to rapidly put this new understanding of redwood DNA to work for conservation. To support vigorous coast redwood and giant sequoia forests in the decades ahead, we will need to protect not only the remarkable structure of the forest, but also protect the genetic diversity that underlies it.

Photo courtesy Save the Redwoods League

Redwood Research Proposals Wanted

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Save 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 …

When Giant Sequoia and Drought Don’t Mix

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I roamed through a few giant sequoia groves over the last week and did find a few mature giant sequoia that aren’t weathering the four-year drought well. Some of these afflicted giant sequoia simply were shedding leaves and their crowns …

What We’re Learning from the Redwoods

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When we take a close look at what makes redwoods survive and thrive, the trees have remarkable stories to tell. That’s what researchers discovered thanks to three studies supported by research grants from Save the Redwoods League over the past …

Snow plant. Photo by Isolino, Flickr Creative Commons

Sequoias and Snow Plants

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If you have read my recent blog posts, you can see a plant identification-theme forming. I promise it won’t be forever but today I have one more to throw at you. This time I will take you to the giant …

Warming Redwood Weather

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Wendy Baxter and Anthony Ambrose from Todd Dawson’s Laboratory at U.C. Berkeley have been tracking weather in the League’s Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative research plots in the coast redwood and giant sequoias forests. Check out their latest weather report …

This drawing shows how the upgraded Mariposa Grove trails will protect sensitive giant sequoia habitat while still giving visitors the amazing views of the forest. Image courtesy of the Yosemite Conservancy.

Restoring Mariposa Grove

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The towering giant sequoias of Yosemite National Park are the iconic trees that catalyzed our Nation’s conservation movement, inspiring Congress in 1864 to designate both the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley “for public use, resort, and recreation”. Today, these mammoth …

Entre Los Gigantes

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Qué maravilla— ¿cómo es que estos gigantes existen? ¿Qué cuentos han de saber y cuantas historias han de conocer? ¿Qué me dirían a este momento? Recalling one of my most memorable experiences among the redwoods at Jedediah Smith Redwoods State …

Redwood Weather

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  RCCI 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 …