Redwoods Again

The damned Sempervirens Fund—and all the suckers that buy in . . .

The situation now:  A large part of the redwood (and other) forest in California (specifically the Santa Cruz Mountains) is still privately owned, but the loggers continue to “thin from above” and probably will continue this ever-toward-impoverishment strategy.  The big trees will never return. 

But the other large part of the forest land is being bought up and “protected” by the Sempervirens Fund and other well-intentioned, do-gooder “conservation” groups, to whom the idea of any thinning is anathema.  Result:  stagnation at the second-growth stage, and no understory disturbance to allow for orchids, etc.  Bye bye diversity, hello mutual congratulation.  (In fact, people who cringe at the idea of cutting see an even worse kind of tinkering, i.e. planting redwoods everywhere, as a warm and fuzzy thing to do “for the environment”).

Hard to decide which of the polar extremes is doing more to ruin the forests.

Anyway, the remaining lands that are still available for doing the right thing are ever decreasing, and of course are 100% in public ownership.

In other words, the reins are in your hands, you being private timberland owners whose heart is in the right place and who can afford to treat your forests right, i.e. “thin from below”.  There is money in it—not quite as much money—but there is also a vibrant “new-old-growth” future in it.  Maximal plant diversity, maximal wildlife use, maximal beauty.