A Commitment to Nature

Saving Redwoods since 1918

The story of the redwoods is a story reaching back hundreds of thousands of years. But in a fraction of that time, within the last 150 years, the ancient forests and essence of our region, have been reduced from 2 million acres to 88,650. While the march of time tends to leave present generations unaware of the efforts and achievements of prior generations, the standing forests are living testaments to the foresight of conservation pioneers.

The Save the Redwoods League was founded in 1918 to acquire and protect redwoods and ensure the survival of the ancient forests. Today, largely due to the league's efforts, nearly 200,000 acres of the redwood forest region is in parks, with only 88,500 acres of old growth.

According to Marti Harris, league communications director, "The protected redwood forests are the league's legacy and a symbol of what people, when working in concert with each other, can really achieve."

In 1917, conservation pioneers John C. Merriam, Henry Fairfield Osborn, and Madison Grant documented their dismay at the logging devastation they encountered on their travels along the new Redwood Highway.

The league set about to change this state of affairs by establishing permanent protection for the cathedral trees, while respecting private property rights and the needs of forestry. Since the beginning the league has purchased property from willing sellers at fair market value. Its success has been attributed to the donations and commitment of its members, its ability to make large cash offers and by its reputation for honesty and non-adversarial relationships with landowners.

In 1918, the league received its first donations for the purchase of redwoods. Small patches of redwood forest continued to be donated or purchased throughout the 1920s until in 1931 when what is now the largest contiguous old-growth redwood forest in the world (the 9,410-acre Rockefeller Grove in Humboldt Redwoods State Park) was purchased from the Pacific Lumber Company, a familiar player in the redwood region today. The Headwaters Forest, purchased by state and federal agencies from the same company in 1999, was the last largest remaining unprotected grove of ancient redwoods.

While the sting from the recent battle to save Headwaters forest is still felt throughout the region, the sentiments were sown decades ago.

In 1922, Joseph Hergesheimer wrote in the Saturday Evening Post, "Nothing could bring back the serenity the forest had accumulated over a hundred million years." He added that future generations would have "bitter and vain resentment when it had learned that a commerce was not enough to keep the heart alive."

As late as the 1960s, 10,000 acres of old-growth redwood were being cut annually from private lands throughout the coastal redwood region. At that time only 260,000 acres remained. In the ensuing years, Congress with lobbying efforts from the league, established Redwood National Park and the league continued to purchase redwood forest lands, including inholdings within parks, to donate to state and national parks.

Although the league's successes are undeniable - 67 percent of redwoods in parks were preserved through their efforts - it has recently begun to recognize the value of watershed and landscape-level protection.

"In the past we didn't recognize like we do now the value of watershed-level protection and therefore focused too much on saving individual monarch trees and cathedral groves," said Harris.

"As the wisdom about conservation planning has changed, so have we. We are currently taking a comprehensive look at our work and the work of others so that the protected forests, are preserved well into the future," Harris added.

Awareness of the importance of watershed protection came about in the aftermath of the catastrophic floods of the 1960s. The league's response was to begin focusing more attention on the watershed lands surrounding the old-growth stands, that are commonly found on alluvial flats and valley bottoms.

The league's members provide much of its focus and funding. And they too are becoming interested in watershed and landscape level protection. In response to requests from some of the league's 43,000 members, restricted funds for watershed, wildlife corridor, and other buffer and protection zones are being created.

The lands provide stepping stones for wildlife thus enhancing the wildlife benefits of the neighboring public lands. The newly protected lands include old-growth Douglas-firs, mature second growth forests, live oaks and multi- trunked madrones. Four major tributaries of the Mattole River, spawning ground for salmon and steelhead, flow through the newly protected lands as well.

According to Harris, the success of the project ?was a direct result of the excellent stewardship of landowners in the corridor and the true dedication of local activists and politicians.?

Two local environmental organizations, Friends of Gilham Butte and the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), had been working to save the old-growth Douglas-fir forests of Gilham Butte for 20 years.

According to Gordy Slack, senior editor of California Wild, the California Academy of Science?s magazine, "Nine-tenths of the Mattole River watershed's old-growth forests have been logged since 1945. Gilham Butte is one of the largest remaining roadless and uncut stands of forest in the entire watershed."

A major breakthrough occurred in 1994 when President Clinton?s Forest Harvest Plan prohibited the logging of the public lands on Gilham Butte. The league's purchase of the surrounding 3,800 acres from Eel River Sawmills for $5.25 million creates an opportunity for the islands of public lands to be connected.

"This unique project ensures habitat connectivity for the rare old growth dependent wildlife species that take refuge here," said Dave Walsh of Ancient Forests International, a partner in achieving protection for the corridor.

With only 4.5 percent of the ancient redwood forest remaining and with much of that protected, what does the future hold for the league?

According to Harris, "As the league looks to the future we are focusing on developing a master plan for the redwoods. The plan will examine the entire redwood 'ecosystem' to assess what the league and other organizations need to do to keep the already-protected redwoods healthy."

The objective of the master plan is to provide the scientific basis for long-term protection of a sustainable coast redwood ecosystem.

The master plan will include four major components: a Redwood Forest Ecology Report, a Stakeholder Survey Report, a Data Inventory and GIS Database, and Action Strategies.

One objective of the plan is to increase positive interaction with stakeholders, including the people, landowners, communities, organizations and government agencies with a stake in what happens in the redwoods.