On Redwoods

Recently read an excellent piece by PJ Delhomme about the history of saving California's redwood forests and groves.

Just wanted to share it, as it inspired some thoughts about how we get people to rally behind causes by humanizing them with appeals to emotion.

50+ years of building, lumbering, and general "progress" during the gold rush ravaged these ancient trees, including the coastal groves - the tallest trees in the world (350 feet) - and Giant Sequoias of the eastern Sierras.

Fortunately, people got about their senses in the nick of time. Sequoia National Park was established in 1890, saving trees thousands of years old. The Save the Redwoods League was established to buy as many groves as possible privately, before they could receive public land distinction.

What stood out to me was how public opinion at the time wasn’t really on the side of saving these old-growth forests. It favored California’s economic progress via the lumber industry, jobs, and an overzealous march for development of the western frontier. So conservations had to craft a PR narrative to sway public opinion and pressure policy makers.

They accomplished this with a classic appeal to pathos in the wake of WWI. The League dedicated a grove on the Eel River in Mendocino and Humboldt counties to the troops:

In a rather ingenious move to preserve as many redwoods as possible, the League established redwood memorial groves when Dr. John C. Phillips donated $32,000 in 1921 to purchase 35 acres. Phillips dedicated the grove to his brother-in-law, Colonel Raynal C. Bolling, who died in World War I. “This idea of immortalizing the memory of men who gave their lives for their country by the dedication of a Redwoods grove will ultimately play a very large part in the saving of these trees,” wrote Grant. “Perhaps more than any one event in the history of the League, Dr. Phillips’ splendid conception of a memorial grove has stimulated the interest and furthered the cause of conservation of these great and ancient groves.” In the past century, the League has established more than 1,000 redwood memorial groves, in more than 30 of California's redwood parks.

This worked. It helped establish a seed of thought in the public's mind about the sacred timelessness of the trees.

California's lumber industry in northern California continued to boom during WWII thanks to the war effort.

It took until 1968 to officially establish Redwood National Park, with conservations sounding the alarm bells that California could be completely depleted of its iconic redwoods by the year 2000.

Anyway, read it on the Boone & Crockett club website.

I couldn't help but think of the great Woody Guthrie song, where these trees are immortalized in a folksy burst of patriotism. I also thought about the ways Jack Kerouac intertwined the redwoods into his writers at Big Sur:

“All kinds of strange and marvelous things like the weird Ripley situation of a huge tree that’s fallen across a creek maybe 500 years ago and’s made a bridge thereby, the other end of its trunk is now buried in ten feet of silt and foliage, strange enough but out of the middle trunk over the water rises straight another redwood tree looking like it’s been planted in the treetrunk, or stuck down into it by a God hand”

Standing among those trees is such a uniquely humbling experience, absorbing their quiet magnificence. Took me back to my first trip to California, when I was around 12 years old. My grandparents took my brother, sister, and I to Big Sur on the drive between Los Angeles and San Francisco, where we experienced the redwoods for the first time in all their majesty. I'm so glad I got to go back a couple years ago.

I look forward to finally doing a trip to both Sequoia National Park and Redwood National Park the future. Both have been on my list since moving to California in 2017. Unfortunately, I haven't prioritized the time.

I also hope to take my parents, native Pennsylvanians who love the woods, to see the Redwoods someday.

It's such an awe-inspiring experience to hang out in their natural splendor. That experience is something I hope to share with them some day.