Nearly five years have passed since the CZU Lightning Complex fires devastated Big Basin Redwoods State Park, but many people are still keeping their distance from the park. “A lot of locals are hesitant to come here,” says Debra Martwick, …
Since 2015, about 20% of the world’s mature giant sequoias have been lost to wildfires in the Sierra Nevada. The escalating severity of these fires threatens the very existence of these iconic giants.
It’s a spectacular drive heading south from San Francisco on Highway 1, where under an azure sky, the furrowed Santa Cruz Mountains meet the sparkling, blue arc of the Pacific and its craggy sea stacks. In about 60 miles, the …
For several hours on a sunny day in late May, crews worked their way up the south-facing hillsides on the heavily burned section of the League’s Alder Creek property. With various tools in their hands, and backpacks full of seedlings, …
The Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition exceeded its goal for work in the giant sequoia range this past year.
One hundred human generations can come and go in the lifetime of a giant sequoia. This forest ecosystem has been here on the west slopes of the Sierra Nevada—and only here—for millions of years, and we lost nearly 20% in …
Meet the people behind the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition.
Save the Redwoods League recently worked with Inside Climate News to tell the story of the dangers faced by California’s giant sequoia forests in a time of high-severity wildfire. League Forest Ecologist Linnea Hardlund features prominently in the video talking …
the enduring power of giant sequoias
Visiting 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.
washburn fire threatens mariposa grove giant sequoias
Giant sequoia groves mired in exceptional drought
New legislation would provide much-needed help for giant sequoias.
The bipartisan Save Our Sequoias Act authorizes emergency measures and funding that will enable federal agencies, tribal organizations and nonprofits to do the work on the ground to protect these irreplaceable natural treasures from the unprecedented wildfires that have become a regular occurrence in the Sierra Nevada.
Nearly all of giant sequoia range in highest drought category.
Volunteers plant giant sequoia seedlings in Sequoia Crest hit heavily by Castle Fire.
For 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.
Scientific American video surveys damage at Alder Creek
Wildfire is creating an emergency within the giant sequoia forest.
According to data compiled by the Giant Sequoia Coalition, 28 giant sequoia groves experienced fire from the 2021 KNP Complex and Windy fires, and these fires killed up to 5% of world’s giant sequoia that are at least four feet in diameter. When combined with estimates that as much as 14% of the world’s monarchs were killed in the 2020 Castle Fire, the numbers paint a grim future for these natural treasures unless immediate action is taken.
