Redwood Trees

The environmental group Save Our Coast will dedicate its second small redwood at 10 a.m. Sunday at a ceremony in front of City Hall. The first tree was dedicated last month, said executive director Mary Frampton. "Redwoods used to grow in Malibu," she said. "The last one was cut down about 100 years ago. We're trying to reestablish them here." Save Our Coast took its lead from a resident who several years ago planted redwoods in his backyard, on the edge of a ravine.

At a reception in the mountains above Santa Cruz, dozens of surfers of a certain age, balancing wine glasses and pizza slices, basked in their closeness to a little piece of their sport's history. The celebrants at the San Lorenzo Valley Historical Museum had known the basic story for a while: In 1885, three Hawaiian princes visiting Santa Cruz on a break from military school wowed the locals with, as a newspaper report put it, "interesting exhibitions of surf-board swimming as practiced in their native islands."

Nature is indeed a wonderful thing. Consider the roar of Niagara Falls, the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, the majesty of Yosemite. If that's not enough, consider this: Nature chose car-mad California--home of drive-through diners and banks, drive-through churches and mortuaries--as the one place on Earth to locate trees that are big enough to, well, to drive through. And Californians have responded as Californians ought to.

A classic struggle is playing out here in the first capital of California, and it's anyone's guess who the victor will be: God or nature. On one side stands San Carlos Borromeo de Monterey, believed to be the oldest continuously functioning church in California, completed in 1794. On the other, a small stand of stately redwood trees, whose roots have made their way through the chapel's foundation and threaten its survival.

Environmentalists protested the legal shooting of black bears by federal trappers in Humboldt and Del Norte counties, saying alternatives to the killings are not being properly considered. The California Department of Fish and Game issues kill permits to owners of timber acreage after inspecting the damage done to redwood trees by bears that strip the bark and eat the sweet layer of new growth underneath. But federal trapper Curt Mullins, supervisor of the U.S.

There were two articles printed recently that seem to represent, sadly, the shortsighted vision of our nation. In one, even after the irreversible damage caused by the oil spill off Huntington Beach, President Bush sees no reason to prevent oil drilling off our California coast. The other article related that in Northern California, the Pacific Lumber Co. has no qualms about felling 2,000-year-old redwood trees. Do the people involved in these two incidents have no feeling for history; for the eons of time the beaches and redwoods have survived; for the enormity of what they have done or propose to do?

Proponents of an initiative to buy vast stands of redwood forests from lumber companies and exclude them from logging say they have gathered more than 800,000 signatures--more than double the number needed--to qualify the measure for the November ballot.

In a "political response" to a "political act," Rep. Pete Stark (D-Oakland) introduced a bill to give federal scenic river status to several Northern California streams as a way to prevent the logging of some old-growth redwood trees. The Headwaters Forest in Mendocino County belongs to Pacific Lumber Co., which has been criticized for destroying increasingly scarce old redwoods to pay off debts incurred by leveraged-buyout artist Charles Hurwitz when his Maxxam Corp.

It was with deep regret that I read the words attributed to Pat Brown concerning the admission of women to the elite Bohemian Club. I admired his courageous public stances while governor and certainly regarded him as considerably more progressive than his successor, Ronald Reagan. Yet it seems that Brown and Reagan share one reactionary trait--they are strange bedfellows as "Bohos." As Brown put it, female presence would compel a lot of frivolous "talk about sewing and raising babies" and put a damper on the men's urge to "pee on the redwood trees."

Four more tree sitters were arrested Tuesday, hours after climbers hired by Pacific Lumber Co. removed other activists from their perches more than 100 feet above the ground. A protester arrested Monday, who gave her name only as "Remedy," was identified by authorities Tuesday as Jeny Crad, 28, of Olympia, Wash. Pacific Lumber was focusing on removing 16 others named in a court order from majestic redwood trees in a grove near Eureka.

Don't call Oral Martin Whitlow Jr. a river pirate. He's no poacher either. This fourth-generation woodsman says he's in the redwood salvage business, when the opportunity presents itself. And he would be happily salvaging a giant redwood on this wintry day if park rangers didn't harbor the foolish notion that the towering trees in Humboldt Redwoods State Park belong to the state -- even after they topple into the swollen Eel River and begin to float away.

[SEQUOIA SEMPERVIRENS] Only a few drops in the shower of tiny seeds raining onto the forest floor this winter will germinate and grow into one of Earth's most massive organisms. Of the 10 million seeds produced every year by each redwood, only a handful survive to full adulthood. But once they make it through an incredibly harsh screening process, they are guaranteed a very long life.

For years, a significant chunk of California's budget for forest restoration and protection has hinged on the logging of thousands of century-old redwoods in a state forest near the Mendocino coast. To the chagrin of environmentalists, the scenic 50,000-acre Jackson Demonstration State Forest has been a cash cow, with woods full of 80- to 120-year-old trees generating as much as $12 million annually.

Four more tree sitters were arrested Tuesday, hours after climbers hired by Pacific Lumber Co. removed other activists from their perches more than 100 feet above the ground. A protester arrested Monday, who gave her name only as "Remedy," was identified by authorities Tuesday as Jeny Crad, 28, of Olympia, Wash. Pacific Lumber was focusing on removing 16 others named in a court order from majestic redwood trees in a grove near Eureka.

A Sonoma County supervisor wants to cut back on new vineyards to protect the county's dwindling redwood acreage. Mike Reilly, recently elected chairman of the state Coastal Commission, is proposing new regulations that would prohibit conversion of timberland to grapes in large tracts of the rural countryside. The proposal would include protections in the county's general plan.

Evidence of a disease that has wiped out thousands of California coastal oaks has shown up on redwoods, although scientists are not yet certain whether the towering trees are susceptible to it. University of California researchers found genetic material from the fungus-like organism that causes sudden oak death on samples of sickly redwood sprouts in Berkeley and Big Sur, heightening the potential threat of the epidemic. There is no known cure.

Under heavy lobbying from the timber industry, the Assembly rejected legislation Friday aimed at preventing the clear-cutting of ancient stands of redwood trees in Northern California. Backed by environmentalists, the bill was directed particularly at the Pacific Lumber Co., which has greatly increased its harvest of redwood trees since it was taken over by the Maxxam Group with the financial assistance of junk bond wizard Michael Milken.

Tu Ly cut repeated bites out of the huge redwood log, gradually transforming it into a likeness of the stuffed wild boar he was using as a model. In his outdoor studio, the chain-saw sculptor carved his latest creation, which was ordered by a woman as a gift for her hunter husband. It would take Ly three days to complete it and cost the woman $500. Ly, 44, was surrounded by 250 redwood statues, a mix of his own work and the creations of other chain-saw artists.

A stand of redwoods the size of San Francisco and home to 23 endangered species would be preserved in a $60-million plan between the state, a timber company and a Bay Area open-space group. The Save the Redwoods League hopes to buy 25,000 acres along California's North Coast from Simpson Lumber Co. and turn it over to the state. Known as the Mill Creek property, it is three times the size of the Headwaters Forest, the preservation of which attracted stiff opposition in 1998.

A restaurant owner accused of illegally chopping down redwoods on federal park property has written a letter to an Alaska representative to try to win sympathy. In 1999, John Ward, owner of Bella Vista Restaurant, allegedly cut down seven 100-year-old trees at Golden Gate National Recreational Area to create a better view. The request for support went to Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), vice chairman of the House Resources Committee, which handles federal parkland issues. Rep.