Presidents and giant sequoias
And some thoughts about tumbleweeds, etc.
Volume 3, Number 43 - Monday, Jan. 26, 2025
Published every Monday and Thursday*
Perspective
ACCORDING TO MY RESEARCH, a dozen or so American presidents have their names attached to something related to giant sequoia trees.
In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed an Act of Congress ceding Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley to the state of California. (Criticism of the state’s stewardship led to the grove returning to federal control with the establishment of Yosemite National Park.)
In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed legislation establishing our country’s second national park, Sequoia National Park (after Yellowstone). It was the first park established to protect a living organism. Harrison signed off on creating Yosemite and General Grant National Parks the same year.
General Grant National Park was named after President Ulysses S. Grant, who served from 1869 to 1877 and, in 1865, as commanding general, led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War. The General Grant Tree, also known as the nation’s Christmas tree, is named for him.
In the spring of 1903, President Teddy Roosevelt spent time with John Muir, exploring the wonders of the Yosemite Valley and camping under the Grizzly Giant in Mariposa Grove. According to the NPS, “their conversations and shared joy with the beauty and magnificence of Yosemite led Roosevelt to expand federal protection of Yosemite, and it inspired him to sign into existence five national parks, 18 national monuments, 55 national bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, and 150 national forests.”
William Howard Taft, president from March 1909 to March 1913, visited Mariposa Grove in October 1909 and, with John Muir and others, was photographed riding in a horse-drawn wagon through the Wawona Tunnel Tree there.
In 1940, General Grant National Park was made part of the new Kings Canyon National Park; since World War II, Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks have been administered together as SEKI. Grant Grove is an important feature of Kings Canyon National Park.
President Harrison also signed the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, preserving millions of acres of forestland and leading to the creation of the National Forest System and the U.S. Forest Service.
President Warren G. Harding was only in office for two years, four months, and 29 days into a term that began in March 1921. A giant sequoia in Giant Forest (Sequoia National Park) was named “The President” in his honor.
In March 1940, Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt created Kings Canyon National Park (which, as noted previously, incorporated General Grant National Park).
In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower declared the General Grant Tree a national shrine. According to the National Park Service, it is the only example of a living shrine in the U.S. The tree was dedicated "in memory of the men and women of the Armed Forces who have served and fought and died to keep this Nation free.”
President Richard M. Nixon, a Californian, reportedly was very fond of giant sequoia trees and asked that the species be among those planted on the grounds of the White House to commemorate his presidency. Unfortunately, the tree doesn’t do well in Washington, D.C.’s climate, and subsequent plantings have also proved unsuccessful.
George H. Bush was president when he visited the Freeman Creek Grove, Sequoia National Forest, on July 4, 1992. A tree there is named in his honor, and on that day, he signed a proclamation that included the following: “The designated giant sequoia groves shall not be managed for timber production and shall not be included in the land base used to establish the allowable sale quantities for the affected national forests. The designated Giant Sequoia groves shall be protected as natural areas with minimal development.”
Many people thought that the Bush proclamation — along with the Sequoia National Forest Mediated Settlement Agreement signed two years earlier — provided adequate protection for the trees.
Many people, but not everyone. Environmental groups continued to push for what they believed would be greater protection. On April 15, 2000, President William Clinton visited the Trail of 100 Giants on Sequoia National Forest to sign a proclamation creating the Giant Sequoia National Monument (under powers granted by the Antiquities Act of 1906).
President Barack Obama in 2011 was asked by Rep. Sam Farr and 80 other Congressional Representatives to transfer the Monument to the National Park Service (a longtime goal of environmental organizations).
President Obama did not take that action, but he did walk through Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park with his family on Father’s Day 2016. His remarks (HERE) included addressing the risk of wildfire: “We’re also seeing longer, more expensive, more dangerous wildfire seasons -- and fires are raging across the West right now. I was just in New Mexico yesterday, which is dealing with a big wildfire, just like folks here in California and four other states –- all while it’s still really early in the season.”
Just the summer before, the 2015 Rough Fire killed 27 large sequoias on parkland in Grant Grove, and at least 74 fire-killed large sequoias were documented on adjacent Forest Service land.
According to the NPS (HERE), the Rough Fire was the first of six fires in six years to kill an unprecedented number of giant sequoia trees. “More than 85 percent of all giant sequoia grove acreage across the Sierra Nevada has burned in wildfires between 2015 and 2021, compared to only one quarter in the preceding century,” the NPS said.
Under President Joe Biden, in July 2022, Forest Service Chief Randy Moore authorized emergency response work in giant sequoia groves of Sierra and Sequoia national forests.
And — in between Obama and Biden — President Donald Trump, in his first term in office, as reported by Save The Redwoods League, “ordered the Department of the Interior to review all national monument designations or expansions occurring after January 1, 1996, where the monument exceeds 100,000 acres, or where Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke determines that a “designation or expansion was made without adequate public outreach.”
Giant Sequoia National Monument was among the 24 monuments that came under review.
As established by President Clinton, the monument was 327,769 acres — carved out of Sequoia National Forest. His proclamation said this was “the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.” Later, the monument was expanded to 328,315 acres.
Eventually, during his first term in office, President Trump reduced the size of some national monuments, but not the GSNM. According to a New York Times article, the president “ sharply reduced the size of two national monuments in Utah on Monday by some two million acres, the largest rollback of federal land protection in the nation’s history.” (The national monuments reduced in size were Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, both in Utah; Trump also changed management conditions to the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in the northwest Atlantic Ocean.)
It’s also fair to report that Trump, in August 2020, as reported by Save The Redwoods League HERE, signed the Great American Outdoors Act, which the League said “guarantees $900 million a year for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) in perpetuity, which could fund much-needed conservation work in the coast redwood and giant sequoia ranges.”
The Act also led to a joint state-federal initiative to reduce wildfire risks, restore watersheds, protect habitat and biological diversity, and help the state meet its climate objectives announced in 2020, during Trump’s first term (more information HERE).
And, you might know, President Joe Biden, in October 2021, reversed Trump’s monument size reduction actions by executive order. “Protection of public lands must not become a pendulum that swings back and forth depending on who is in public office,” Biden said at the time.
On Jan. 20, of course, President Trump began a new term in office and occupied his first day in office by issuing 26 executive orders, with more following.
So far, I haven’t seen that a new executive order is reversing Biden’s reversal — or calling for downsizing GSNM or other national monuments.
However, an article in the Los Angeles Times last October (HERE) notes that the right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 calls for repealing the Antiquities Act of 1906 and reversing Biden’s actions.
Project 2025 is a conservative movement that describes itself (HERE) as “a menu of policy suggestions to meet our country’s deepest challenges and put America back on track.” President Trump has made statements distancing himself from Project 2025 — and also taken action that seems in line with the conservative playbook.
You likely know that President Trump visited California recently and met with Gov. Gavin Newsom to tour areas of Los Angeles impacted by recent firestorms. Newsweek reported HERE that the president gave California two ultimatums for wildfire aid. The president called for California to require voters to show identification and changes to the state’s water policy.
Federal hiring
On Jan. 20, Trump signed a hiring freeze order that stated that “no federal civilian service position that is vacant as of noon … may be filled and no new position may be created … “with exceptions noted).
Although the order states that it does not apply to positions related to public safety, it raised concerns that wildland firefighting positions may not be filled.
As reported by Wildfire Today (HERE), a memo from the U.S. Department of Agriculture — which is over the Forest Service — stated that there were no exceptions to the hiring freeze.
“Accordingly,” the memo read, “effective immediately, agencies and offices are not authorized to extend an offer of employment to any person. Persons to whom an offer of employment has been extended, but acceptance has not been received, shall be contacted immediately and be informed that the offer has been revoked.”
And, The Washington Post reported (HERE), that the National Park Service rescinded about 400 job offers after the hiring freeze, “prompting concerns that parks could be short-staffed this summer.”
According to the article, the NPS usually hires around 7,500 summer employees for various roles. A woman whose job offer from Sequoia National Park had been rescinded was among people interviewed by the Post. The article also noted, "Since 2010, staffing levels at the Park Service have declined by 15 percent, even as park visitation has increased by 16 percent, according to federal data analyzed by the National Parks Conservation Association.”
Firehouse.com reported HERE that “The federal government’s wildland firefighting forces in California already face a steep workforce shortage. Last year, ProPublica reported 35% of wildland firefighting jobs in the state were vacant.”
An important note
In researching for this edition, I came across an interesting document (HERE) titled “Field Organization and Administrative History of the National Forest System,” apparently published sometime after 2022. It addresses law-making and land transfers and just a quick read made me realize that public land management issues have been tied closely to politics forever. And there have been plenty of shenanigans.
My thoughts
It is clear to anyone with basic knowledge about California that the new president isn’t dialed into the complexity of land management or water.
Remember, please, that the state is a little larger than 100 million acres and more than 47% belongs to the federal government. Yet the president — in his first term and now — wants to blame California for not managing its forests, most of which are on federal land.
“You should not be in a position where you have tumbleweed that is dry as a bone,” the president said in Los Angeles. “Even tumbleweeds can be nice and green and rich and loaded with water that won't burn...”
Seriously?
Tumbleweeds, which plague California and the West, are not native plants. According to Wikipedia (HERE) while they are growing, tumbleweeds can remove up to 44 gallons of water from the soil (per plant). When mature, the above-ground part of the plant separates from its root, dries out and rolls off across the countryside, spreading its seeds.
The many executive orders issued by President Trump since Jan. 20 undoubtedly were written by people other than the president, apparently with very specific intents in mind.
A man who says that tumbleweeds “can be nice and green” and “loaded with water that won’t burn” could not have pulled together the precise directives for our country to change course on many fronts.
But he has signed them and absent court decisions quashing the orders, the playing field has changed.
It’s also clear to me that the Giant Sequoia National Monument Proclamation — no matter how many acres of land it included — didn’t protect giant sequoias from wildfire and that we’re likely headed into another multi-year drought with fewer resources than we need.
Let’s hope for more snow.
* Due to illness, I was unable to publish newsletters on Jan. 20 and 23.
Wildfire, water & weather update
Welcome rain will likely help firefighters wrap up wind-driven wildfires in Southern California and bring other problems, including flooding and erosion.
Although we’ve recently had rain and snow, the Southern Sierra Nevada is still “abnormally dry,” according to the California Drought Map (HERE), and more areas of the state have advanced into various stages of drought.
Let’s hope for more snow. Yes, I said that twice.
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Thanks for reading!
Despite the hiring freeze, I did notice that on the federal government jobs site that as of this morning, for SNP, they have 9 firefighter positions open and 1 Corps of Engineers job available.