Sequoia groves under siege by logging?
Not according to Save the Redwoods League
Volume 2, Number 18 - Monday, Oct. 9, 2023
Published twice a week, on Monday and Thursday
Perspective
A WEBSITE CALLED ilovetrees.net has fabulous photos of giant sequoia trees.
Sue Cag and Kim Disco share writing, photos and video — mostly about giant sequoias — on the website.
Cag has written about living in a giant sequoia grove — and losing her home during the 2020 Castle Fire. The website includes photos and commentary about the fire and giant sequoia groves — and since the fire, it has included comments about Save the Redwoods League’s property and what Cag has called logging (HERE). And on Sept. 9, the website carried an unsigned article with the headline “Sequoia Groves Under Siege by Logging.” You can read it HERE.
According to the article, “Numerous sequoia groves have recently been logged or are currently being destroyed by active (and illegal) logging.” The article includes a list of giant sequoia groves managed by various governmental agencies and Save the Redwoods League.
I thought the allegations made in the Sept. 9 article were astounding. I reached out to Cag and Disco by email but had no response. And I reached out to Save the Redwoods League for comment. I’ll be following up with reports on what’s happening in the other groves referenced in the article — and I decided to use the response from Save the Redwoods League in its entirety.
Here’s what the organization had to say in response to my request for comment:
Save the Redwoods League appreciates the premise of the ILoveTrees blog and author Sue Cag’s clear passion for the iconic giant sequoia trees. However, many of the assertions in the blog’s Sept. 9 post, “Sequoia groves under siege by logging,” are at best inaccurate and, worse, dangerously misleading.
This amazing species is facing an unprecedented and existential threat. Since 2015, up to 20% of these mature, fire-adapted trees have been lost to wildfires that burned at a severity never before documented. These forests are highly altered from the conditions that existed prior to European colonization and the forced removal of Indigenous peoples and their stewardship practices. There is wide consensus among forest and wildfire ecologists that without active restoration and recovery interventions, we could lose much of the rest of the forest to wildfire mortality within the next decade.
Restoring giant sequoia groves and their resilience to fire and a warming climate requires a new approach after decades of misguided forest and fuels management, one that responds to the urgency and severity of this existential crisis for the giant sequoia. The tools required to address the crisis include prescribed fire, removal of dead and dying trees, and replanting in select areas where high-severity fire has eliminated the seed sources needed for reforestation, as well as restoration thinning to reduce the density of young trees that have grown into these forests following a century of fire suppression. In some cases, these treatments are not initially pretty. But neither is a forest decimated by high-severity wildfires.
There is a fundamental difference between restoration thinning and commercial logging. Restoration work aims to build wildfire resilience back into the forest by removing either burned trees that present a risk as fuel for future fires and/or smaller trees of varying species that act as ladder fuels carrying fire into the giant sequoia canopy and compete for the scarce moisture and other resources with the giant sequoia trying to survive. Commercial logging, quite simply, prioritizes removal of trees that are selected to maximize revenue. The logic and priorities of restoration work and logging are fundamentally different, even if some of the tools used are the same.
The work being done by Save the Redwoods League and the many government agencies and tribal entities who share responsibility for managing giant sequoias is completely legal and in accordance with all existing environmental regulations. The work aims to build wildfire resilience back into the range, so that the wildfires we know will happen do not threaten the future viability of these forests – and those who live among them.
We understand that much of this work looks and sounds counterintuitive and even scary. But this situation is too serious and too urgent for our community of giant sequoia supporters to spend time arguing about facts that are widely known and available. We invite anyone who cares about these issues to become more fully informed with the resources available at the Giant Sequoias Land Coalition website.
SEKI announces a determination on its proposal to re-establish sequoia seedlings in sequoia groves and fisher habitat
Sequoia and Kings National Parks announced Oct. 5 that the National Park Service has completed an environmental assessment for a proposal to re-establish sequoia seedlings in sequoia groves and fisher habitat and will begin implementing the plan by completing field surveys and developing, reviewing, approving, and implementing planting activities where needed in certain areas of the parks impacted by wildfires.
I reported about this project and related controversy HERE.
And you can read the press release about the decision HERE.
Will litigation follow? Stay tuned…
Wildfire, water & weather update
Temperatures go up, then they go down, and we can expect more of that. But there are no red flag warnings or precipitation in the forecast for the next few days. The best Sierra Nevada weather forecasts can be found at NWS Hanford, HERE, and NWS Sacramento, HERE.
Wildfire update: The Redwood Fire in Sequoia National Park — still at 1,957 acres and 45% contained according to a report from Oct. 7. The Quarry Fire on Stanislaus National Forest — at 6,053 acres yesterday with 33% containment.
Prescribed burning continues at many locations in the Sierra Nevada. If you check out the WatchDuty map HERE you’ll see a string of green flame icons. Click through, and you’ll find that some of these burns are quite large. Not all planned burns have worked out, however. One planned for Grant Grove was postponed due to dry conditions.
Rabbit Fire on Sequoia National Forest
The Rabbit Fire, according to a news release from Sequoia National Forest, originated from a Sept. 30 lightning strike. As of a report yesterday, the fire had grown to about 28 acres and continued burning with a low fire intensity. SQF published a news release, map and photos from this fire on Facebook yesterday, but it didn’t show up on InciWeb or WatchDuty when I checked this morning.
According to the news release, ground firefighting resources, including crews and engines, were constructing control lines, triaging values at risk and conducting ignition operations along the fire’s perimeter while they evaluated the fire to determine initial and long-term risks.
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Giant sequoias in the news
• Sierra Sun Times published an article HERE about Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park’s announcement of a decision to replant sequoia and other mixed conifer seeds.
• National Parks Traveler has an article HERE on the same topic.
• Ecologist and author George Wuerthner wrote a piece for The Wildlife News HERE that claims that The Washington Post mischaracterized a study in THIS ARTICLE (gift link) that I also shared here when it was published earlier this month. Referencing the 2021 KNP Complex Fire that killed thousands of giant sequoia trees, the headline on the WashPost story is “Large trees fueled massive Calif. wildfire that killed giant sequoias.” Here’s what Wuerthner says at the end of his piece:
Better media coverage of fire ecology is necessary if we hope to have well-informed public participation in federal forest policy. Unfortunately, most journalists do not have the scientific background to judge the validity of scientific research or to interpret the findings accurately. This is where independent researchers like Los Padres ForestWatch, John Muir Project, Wild Heritage, and other organizations can play an important role.
A comment: It doesn’t take a scientific background to recognize that Wuerthner’s list leaves off many researchers who have devoted their lives to giant sequoia lands management and study. — Claudia Elliott
Historic photo of the week
Thanks for reading!
Claudia:
Thanks for the Save the Redwoods League article in response to the "Sequoia Groves Under Siege by Logging" article. Camp 70 foresters, Chris Conrad and I visited several groves in August including Long Meadow grove where Save the Redwoods League was working with the Forest Service to remove dead trees in the groves. Rick Elkins wrote an article for Giant Sequoia News Letter, regarding our visit. Save the Redwoods League is doing the work that needs to be done in its groves and those where it is working with the USFS and others. This work is called Forest Management, where the goal is to protect the Giant Sequoias. The work is not aggressive. We would like to see more intense biomass removal, but Save the Redwoods League is doing what it thinks is necessary to protect the groves through limited biomass removal. We applaud them for there efforts. We can debate levels of biomass treatment,. but we shouldn't debate that action to preserve our Giant Sequoia groves is needed. More of these joint partnerships are needed to address the threat of potential destruction of our sacred Giant Sequoia groves.