Redwoods Rising

What Is Redwoods Rising?

Formalized in April 2018, Redwoods Rising is a collaborative, landscape-scale restoration initiative among Save the Redwoods League, the National Park Service, and California State Parks. Together, we will be implementing a massive restoration effort to improve forest and watershed conditions across the 120,000 acres of forests in Redwood National and State Parks (RNSP).
 

 

The mission of Redwoods Rising is to protect old-growth stands, restore redwood forest ecosystems, and ensure the long-term health of these lands. Together with redwood enthusiasts, park visitors, local communities, and tribes, we seek to increase support, knowledge, and appreciation of the iconic and unique California redwood forest landscape. Our vision of Redwoods Rising is that the 120,000 acres of redwood forest ecosystems in RN exists as a connected and thriving landscape that supports and protects the parks' natural and cultural treasures. This restoration effort will involve forest and vegetation management, failing and inaccessible logging road removal and maintenance, cultural site protection, watershed management, as well as reducing the amounts of erosion and sediment going into rivers and streams.

 

Lands, Watersheds and Ecosystems to be Restored and Reconnected.

• Collectively:
  120,000 acres of public lands in Redwood National and State Parks
• Specifically:
  72,000 acres in Redwood National Park
  32,000 acres in Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park
  14,000 acres in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park

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What Restoration Work is Happening Now? What is Coming?

Overall project goals:

• Rehabilitate over 70,000 acres of second-growth forest in Redwood National and State Parks

• Remove 300 miles of abandoned, failing, and inaccessible roads

• Estimated timeline: 30+ years

First areas to be addressed:

• Greater Mill Creek: estimated timeline 25-30 years

• Greater Prairie Creek: estimated timeline 10-15 years

Early 2020 – Early 2022:

• Thinning and reforestation: 3,266 acres

• Failing and inaccessible road removal: 13 miles

 

Map and Location of Restoration Areas

The Greater Mill Creek (GMC) Watershed is in the northern part of Redwood National and State Parks and is south and south-east of Crescent City. GMC restoration is mostly in Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park.

The Greater Prairie Creek (GPC) Watershed is in the southern part of Redwood National and State Parks and is north and north-west of Orick. The GPC project area is in both Redwood National Park and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.

 

Save the Redwoods League

Summary of the Collaborative

Redwoods Rising is a restoration and land management collaborative among California State Parks, Redwood National Park, and the Save the Redwoods League.

This is a fresh approach to a long-shared partnership, building upon decades of collaborative efforts to protect and restore the park’s redwood forest ecosystems. This collaborative was catalyzed by a growing need to think about resource stewardship across boundaries at the systems level while embracing the principles of resiliency and landscape connectivity. This effort is intended to be responsive to that need by providing an avenue for sharing resources to get the work done.

You can watch a short video about the day this collaborative officially began.

Read an August 2020 blog from a League forester as he documents progress with Redwoods Rising.

The complexity and costs of restoration continue to increase, making strategically coordinated project planning, execution, and funding more critical than ever. At the same time, scaling up and accelerating the pace of restoration activities is necessary at the landscape level if the park’s fragmented ecosystems are to be resilient to the harmful impacts of drought, fire, disease, invasive species, and climate change.

Redwoods Rising brings together the existing Redwood National and State Parks partnership with the League to more strategically and efficiently address these needs. It serves to formalize the existing relationships among these organizations and further leverage the strengths of each partner, while also working to engage local tribes and communities in this focused effort.

Furthermore, Redwoods Rising hopes to increase the pace and scale of restoration by pooling resources across boundaries, and truly achieve landscape-scale restoration.

An example of this partnership is the Forest Apprenticeship Program, provided by Save the Redwoods League. Each summer starting in 2018, Humboldt State University students have supported essential mapping, data collection, and monitoring for forest restoration.

Additionally, in the winters of 2017-2019, the League funded and hired a "Storm Patrol" crew. These contractors became the first formalized Storm Patrol team in Redwood National Park. Their work in monitoring and protecting legacy logging roads from catastrophic failure was essential to the long-term health of the parks' rivers and forests. The partnership continues to support a year-round roads and storm patrol position.

 

Where Can I Find Out More About Redwoods Rising?

Even though we still are at the beginning of this ambitious project - there are plenty of ways to learning more about Redwoods Rising.

In the years ahead, our restoration projects webpages will continue to grow. Save The Redwoods League has great information about this collaborative project. The California Department of Parks and Recreation also has information and videos about Redwoods Rising.

If you want to dig much deeper into the history, goals, management and potential ecosystem benefits of this program, then spend time with our frequently asked questions.

 

Dave Van De Mark, John Chao, NPS

Click here to return to the parks' "Nature and Science" webpage.