Support for LAist comes from
Audience-funded nonprofit news
Stay Connected
Audience-funded nonprofit news
Listen

Share This

Climate and Environment

Why Environmentalists Are Suing The National Park Service For Planting Sequoias

A large sequoia tree that has been burned
A dead monarch sequoia in Kings Canyon National Park’s Redwood Mountain Grove, where the National Park Service planted sequoia seedlings this fall.
(
K. Shive
)

With our free press under threat and federal funding for public media gone, your support matters more than ever. Help keep the LAist newsroom strong, become a monthly member or increase your support today. 

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.

Support for LAist comes from

“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.

Three men in hats walking through a dense forest.
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.
(
Doug Bevington
)

“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.”

Support for LAist comes from

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.

A worker with a bright orange safety helmet planting a sequoia sapling
Christy Brigham plants a sequoia seedling in Redwood Mountain Grove this fall.
(
National Park Service
)

“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.”

Support for LAist comes from

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”.

At LAist, we believe in journalism without censorship and the right of a free press to speak truth to those in power. Our hard-hitting watchdog reporting on local government, climate, and the ongoing housing and homelessness crisis is trustworthy, independent and freely accessible to everyone thanks to the support of readers like you.

But the game has changed: Congress voted to eliminate funding for public media across the country. Here at LAist that means a loss of $1.7 million in our budget every year. We want to assure you that despite growing threats to free press and free speech, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust. Speaking frankly, the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news in our community.

We’re asking you to stand up for independent reporting that will not be silenced. With more individuals like you supporting this public service, we can continue to provide essential coverage for Southern Californians that you can’t find anywhere else. Become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission.

Thank you for your generous support and belief in the value of independent news.

Chip in now to fund your local journalism
A row of graphics payment types: Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay and PayPal, and  below a lock with Secure Payment text to the right
(
LAist
)

Trending on LAist