Burning in South Grove
Long-awaited effort in Big Trees state park
Volume 3, Number 26 - Monday, Nov. 4, 2024
Published every Monday and Thursday*
Perspective
GUY MCCARTHY, a reporter for The Union-Democrat in Sonora had good news to report last week:
Prescribed burning on 1,300 acres of the dangerously overgrown South Grove of Giant Sequoias, the largest stand of sequoias in Tuolumne County and the rest of the Mother Lode, continued Wednesday, Calaveras Big Trees State Park staff said.
California State Parks is conducting the first significant prescribed burning in the South Grove in 17 years with assistance from Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service. The project began Tuesday morning with test burns followed by ignitions. A fat, wide smoke stack column was visible Tuesday afternoon in multiple neighboring counties, including Calaveras, Alpine, and Amador counties.
McCarthy is one of a few reporters in California who works hard to cover issues relating to giant sequoias despite many other responsibilities, and he’s followed the South Grove issues for years.
As his latest report notes, “in spite of the state park’s name, the South Grove of Giant Sequoias lies entirely within Tuolumne County, not Calaveras County,” and:
The largest monarch sequoias in Calaveras Big Trees State Park are found in the South Grove, which is home to about 1,000 mature giant sequoias on the south side of the North Fork Stanislaus River. The much smaller Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias in Yosemite National Park is home to about two dozen mature giant sequoias.
You can read his full report HERE. State Parks information about the prescribed fire is HERE.
* You may have noticed there was no newsletter last Thursday, Oct. 31. I had to take a sick day with a headache, deep cough and fever. Thought I might have COVID-19 but tested negative and fortunately was starting to feel better by Saturday. My apologies!
Cultural burning in Alder Creek Grove
Last Monday, I had an opportunity to learn about cultural burning at Save the Redwoods League’s Alder Creek Grove.
Sarah Villicana, a reporter I haven’t seen for quite a few years, was there covering the demonstration for the Porterville Recorder. You can read her report HERE.
I wrote a piece that was published in The Bakersfield Californian on Saturday. You can read it online HERE.
There is so much more I could have said. It’s hard to shape a single article to cover all of the facets of an issue.
One thing I will add: Ron W. Goode, chairman of the North Fork Mono Tribe and leader of an effort to demonstrate that people in the Sierra Nevada used fire for land management for thousands of years, had more to say about forest management than I included in my story for The Californian.
Bottom line, he said, there are too many trees.
And that’s a story for another day.
‘Range of Light National Monument’
Opponents of a proposal to change the management of what we know as Sierra National Forest and call it “Range of Light National Monument” are very active on Facebook. I’ve written about this proposal in a couple of recent newsletters, so I won’t go into a lot of detail this morning, but will direct readers to an opinion piece by Marek Warszawski that appeared in the Fresno Bee last week.
Warszawski has been with The Bee since 1998 and written about Sierra Nevada issues many times. You can read his latest piece HERE.
He makes many important points, among them:
The real solution to managing our public land for both recreational enjoyment and the preservation of the environment is for Congress to fund national forests and national parks at levels sufficient for that immense task. Something this country stopped doing decades ago. Not to simply change the name.
Of course, more than a name change is proposed. As with the creation of Giant Sequoia National Monument from part of Sequoia National Forest nearly 25 years ago, the proposed new national monument would undoubtedly come with new rules. Exactly what those rules might be would depend upon whether such a monument was established by Congress or by presidential proclamation (under the Antiquities Act of 1906) and with the language included at the time (and possibly as interpreted by courts later).
So, I take issue with something else Warszawski wrote about people’s comments on Facebook:
… many are uninformed and based on falsehoods. Fishing, hunting and mining would still be allowed, as would four-wheeling and riding ATVs on approved roads. Nobody is trying to take away your favorite activity.
I don’t fish, hunt, mine or go four-wheeling, but I’ve covered the Sierra Nevada long enough to know that there absolutely are people who have worked for years to stop people from being able to use public lands for most of those purposes — or to restrict access in such a way that most people wouldn’t be able to get to some areas. I’m not judging here whether that effort is for better or worse, but it’s unfair for Warszawski to tell people that no one is trying to take away their favorite activity.
Giant art in Venice
An art exhibition featuring large-scale paintings inspired by giant sequoias opened Saturday and will run through Nov. 17. ARCANE Space in Venice, California, hosts the debut solo exhibition by LA-based artist J Maskrey, whose large-scale paintings “bring to life the majesty and endurance of California’s iconic sequoias.”
A portion of the proceeds from sales will benefit sequoia conservation in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks via the Sequoia Parks Conservancy.
The artist will be in the gallery for a talk at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 10. Gallery hours are 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Friday through Sunday.
Here’s what a news release said about the art:
Maskrey’s work layers rich, textured paint to evoke the cycle of life, survival, and decay. Themes of beauty, destruction, and transformation explore the powerful connection between the natural world and human civilization—and the impact of each on the other.
ARCANE Space is at 324 Sunset Ave., Unit G, Venice Beach. More information HERE.
Wildfire, water & weather update
Tioga Road through Yosemite to the Eastern Sierra remained temporarily closed this morning because of snow and icy conditions. But as far as I can tell, recent storms brought relatively little snow or rain. Still, a little can help, and Predictive Services (HERE) shows little or no risk of a large fire kicking off in the Sierra Nevada (although Southern California is at risk with Santa Ana winds). The California Drought Map (HERE) still shows “abnormally dry” throughout much of Sierra Nevada. The best Sierra Nevada weather forecasts are at NWS Hanford, HERE, and NWS Sacramento, HERE. There’s a chance of rain next Monday, with snow possible at higher elevations.
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