This is Giant Sequoia News, a weekly newsletter about the giant sequoias of California’s Sierra Nevada and the challenges these trees face — not the least of which is that there is little agreement about how to manage the lands where they grow.
Beginning Aug. 8, I’ll send a newsletter to subscribers (all free for now) every Monday morning. What can you expect? First, an article sharing a facet of my perspective on giant sequoias (keep reading for a sample in this post). Second, during fire season, a brief report on the status of wildfires where giant sequoias grow. Third, a recap of giant sequoias in the news from the previous week. And finally a summary of other material related to giant sequoias that I think you might enjoy reading (with links, of course).
If you haven’t been following news about giant sequoias, here’s a quick overview: Public land managers tell us that in the last two few years close to 20% of native giant sequoias have been killed, mostly by wildfire. Some of these trees were more than 1,000 years old. And until recently, there was a popular opinion that these big trees were more or less fireproof.
What to do to protect the trees from new wildfires — and what to do (or not to do) in the groves where the trees died — is actually quite controversial. The controversy goes something like this: public land management plans are followed by lawsuits. Both the plans and the lawsuits take years to develop and/or resolve. And in the meantime, yes — we have continued drought and more wildfires.
I’m a journalist, not an activist. I keep an open mind and try to understand all viewpoints. Which doesn’t mean I don’t have a viewpoint, it just means my goal is to provide readers with a broad range of information so they can form their own opinion.
I hope you will consider subscribing — all you will have to do is click the green button at the bottom of this page and enter your email address. I promise not to sell it or spam you!
And for starters, here’s a story from my childhood about amazing giant sequoias!
‘We don’t have nothin’ like that in Texas’
In the early 1920s, my father’s family moved from Texas to Lindsay, California. He was born there in 1929, just months before the stock market crashed, sending the country into the Great Depression. My mother was born in nearby Porterville in 1932. They met in the spring of 1950 in the tiny town of Springville — also in Tulare County — and married soon after.
Around 1962, some of my grandmother’s Texas relatives visited California, and my father and his two brothers somehow ended up in a competition to impress these relatives with the wonders of the Golden State. I was about 10 years old and remember this very clearly.
My Uncle A.D., the oldest, took them to Disneyland.
Well, it was nice, one of my grandmother’s sisters said, but Texas had Six Flags. The theme park halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth had opened the previous year, and by accounts from the relatives, it was much nicer than Disneyland.
My Uncle Jay, seven years older than my father, took the relatives to Hearst Castle. The former estate of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst had been donated to the people of California by the Hearst Corporation, and my uncle was certain that the fabulous hilltop mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean at San Simeon would wow the Texans.
Well, it was nice, my grandmother’s brother said, but Texas had the King Ranch. The ranch, founded in 1853, comprised more than five times the acreage of Hearst Ranch holdings in San Luis Obispo County and had been designated a National Historic Monument the year before.
Finally, it was my father’s turn to entertain the relatives. He decided to take them to Sequoia National Park to see the General Sherman Tree. Believed to be somewhere between 2,200 and 2,700 years old, General Sherman is the largest known living single-stem tree on Earth. No matter how many times you’ve seen this tree — or other Giant Sequoia specimens growing on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada — it will take your breath away.
My grandmother’s sister had just one thing to say: “We don’t have nothin’ like that in Texas.”
Indeed.