Why Environmentalists Are Suing The National Park Service For Planting Sequoias

Environmentalists are suing the National Park Service for planting nursery-grown sequoia seedlings in California groves devastated by fires in recent years.

Fires burned nearly three quarters of the 37 sequoia groves in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in 2020 and 2021. Now, more than two years later, some environmentalists and the agency have come to opposite conclusions about how much damage was done, and how well the groves are naturally rebounding.

“In 21 out of the 27 groves, we saw primarily beneficial effects,” said Christy Brigham, the Chief of Resource Management and Science at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

But she said satellite images showed that portions of the remaining groves had experienced “high severity fire” — meaning most, if not all, the canopy was destroyed.

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“That is not a typical occurrence in giant sequoia groves,” Brigham said. “Giant sequoias are incredibly well-adapted to fire. They're a very resilient species. You don't live to be 3,000 years old if you keel over every time the forest catches on fire.”

The National Park Service estimates up to a fifth of the world’s giant sequoias were killed during those two fires.

But Chad Hanson, a research ecologist with the John Muir Project — one of the organizations behind the lawsuit — said his own study of satellite images found the number of trees killed by the fires was much lower.

And, since sequoias need fire to reproduce — the heat opens up their cones and releases their seeds — he’s not as concerned by those losses.

Chad Hanson (center), a research ecologist with the John Muir Project, leads a group through naturally growing sequoia seedlings in Redwood Mountain Grove in late September 2023.

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Doug Bevington

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“Because for every one of the mature sequoias that was killed, we now have hundreds or even thousands of new, rapidly growing giant sequoia seedlings and saplings that are going to be the new sequoia groves for the next several hundred years.”

Hanson said Kings Canyon’s Redwood Mountain Grove — one of the two groves the National Park Service planted in this fall — was already showing an impressive rebound in June of this year.

Brigham’s concern is how many sequoia seedlings are enough to ensure the population’s survival in a given area through future droughts and fires.

“There were lots of places that had no seedlings or very low numbers of seedlings,” she said. “They're not distributed across these areas in a way that gives us confidence that without intervention, we will have sequoia groves in those areas in the future.”

Brigham said the National Park Service did not plant seedlings in areas showing successful regeneration.

The lawsuit also aims to stop the National Park Service from cutting down trees and carrying out prescribed burns in the parks. The complaint specifically about the tree planting program was added later.

Christy Brigham plants a sequoia seedling in Redwood Mountain Grove this fall.

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National Park Service

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“But to be clear, it's not just tree planting,” Hanson said. “They're proposing to create a series of clear cuts in these wilderness areas to land squadrons of helicopters to drop off the thousands and thousands of pounds of materials and supplies and seedlings that they need to do this tree plantation project.”

Hanson said the process could kill more seedlings than the National Park Service is planting.

Brigham said she could not comment on the lawsuit and how it may or may not affect the replanting project. This winter, the agency will decide whether or not to plant seedlings in the other four groves that experienced “high severity fire”.