giant sequoia

Save Our Sequioas

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Photo by AP Photo/Noah Berger

Our thanks to Lindsey Botts for this story:

Can the Save Our Sequoias Act Match Up to Its Name?

Dozens of conservation groups push back against a pending forestry bill

As the Washburn Fire last month threatened to scorch the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias in Yosemite National Park, discussions about how to protect the iconic trees heated up. While most people agree that the trees are treasured monuments that need to be preserved, there is considerable disagreement about how best to do that. Continue reading →

Seeing Sequoias Surprises

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Titans in the fog in Sequoia National Park, California. David Benjamin Sherry for The New York Times

Thanks to Jon Mooallem for this one:

In the Land of Giants

Communing with some of the biggest trees on Earth.

The trees are so big that it would be cowardly not to deal with their bigness head on. They are very, very big. You already knew this — they’re called “giant sequoias” — and I knew it, too. But in person, their bigness still feels unexpected, revelatory. Continue reading →

Tree Elders & Drought

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Giant sequoias in the Sierra Nevada range can grow to be 250 feet tall — or more. John Buie/Flickr

Thanks to National Public Radio (USA):

How Is A 1,600-Year-Old Tree Weathering California’s Drought?

It’s been a brutal forest fire season in California. But there’s actually a greater threat to California’s trees — the state’s record-setting drought. The lack of water has killed at least 60 million trees in the past four years.

Scientists are struggling to understand which trees are most vulnerable to drought and how to keep the survivors alive. To that end, they’re sending human climbers and flying drones into the treetops, in a novel biological experiment. Continue reading →

Treetops Teeming

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Climbers, including a master instructor, made their way up Grandfather, an 800-year-old, 200-foot-tall redwood near Los Gatos, Calif., last month. Steve Lillegren

A topic we have been coming back to on a regular basis for years–the value of biodiversity in general (we are not averse to stating the obvious in these funny times we live in) and in particular the as-yet still to be explored forest treetops–appears in the Science section of this week’s New York Times. Apart from reminding us of a tree-inclined scientific friend (Meg, of treetop science fame, we have just recently learned you are now out in the vicinity of these redwoods, and so we shout this one out to you!), and reminding us of one of the great long-form pieces of journalism on the same topic, it is worth a read:

In Towering Redwoods, an Abundance of Tiny, Unseen Life

By RACHEL NUWER

More people are likely to have reached the summit of Mount Everest than have been to the top of an old-growth redwood tree, which helps explain why we know little about the biodiversity these giants harbor. Continue reading →