Conservation: Reprieve for the Redwoods

The giant redwood tree, which grows only in the foggy climes of Northern California and Oregon, is one of the world’s oldest and largest plants. Yet it is more than a plant and more than a relic. With huge trunks soaring hundreds of feet into the sky, a forest of Sequoia sempervirens is a life unto itself, binding a despoiled planet to its pristine past. As California Naturalist Duncan McDuffie said: “To enter a grove of redwoods is to step within the portals of a cathedral more beautiful and more serene than any erected by the hands of man.”

For 50 years, conservationists have been fighting a losing battle to save the redwoods. Their mahogany-hued, durable lumber (it virtually defies dry rot) is highly prized for its structural and decorative uses. To date, the battle has gone to the chainsaw. Where there were once 2,000,000 acres of virgin redwoods, only 250,000 stand today. Last week, as Congress sent to President Johnson a bill establishing the nation’s first Redwood National Forest, the conservationists won a significant victory.

The new national park, which will open to hikers and campers in a few years, comprises 58,000 acres along Northern California’s coast in Humboldt and Del Norte counties. Half the acreage comes from three small state forests that stretch south from near the Oregon border for about 33 miles along the coast. The Federal Government will complete the park by buying up the land in between the state parks from timber companies and private individuals for $92 million. Sequestered within the park will be 32,500 acres of virgin redwoods, including the world’s tallest (367 feet) tree as well as the second, third and sixth highest.

Much of the credit for saving the redwoods belongs to the California-based Sierra Club and San Francisco’s Save-the-Redwoods League, which was founded 50 years ago. Creation of the park comes none too soon. At the present rate of logging, the virgin stands of redwoods would last only another 20 years, a mere second in the lives of trees that were swaying in the Pacific breeze when Christ was born.