If You Build It, Will Coho Run? Marshall Ranch Ponds Constructed to Maintain Redwood Creek Summer Flows

Joel Monschke (Stillwater Sciences Senior Engineer and Technical Lead), Elizabeth Marshall Maybee (landowner), and Logan Edwards (Edwards Excavation) from left to right at the lower pond site. Photo by David Sanchez (General Manager of the Marshall Ranch)

By Dana Stolzman, Executive Director, Salmonid Restoration Federation The Build Up Coho salmon persist in scattered watersheds throughout the North Coast of California, especially in forested tributaries that provide habitat refugia. Redwood Creek is a rare example of a human-populated watershed that still retains intrinsic potential for coho salmon recovery. For over 10 years, the…

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Introducing Baduwa’t Watershed Council

A successful Invasive Species Removal event in Powers Creek. Photo by Isabelle LeMieux

Formerly the Mad River Alliance In Humboldt County, the Mad River is a lifeline, heavily utilized by its surrounding communities, both human and animal. The watershed connects wild spaces to neighborhoods. The river is the source of drinking water for approximately 90,000 community members. It is recognized as a climate refuge, provides habitat for a…

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A Busy Releaf Petaluma Season Ahead as More Shade Trees Are Planned for the Area

ReLeaf Petaluma volunteer Stacey Lisker hard at work preparing a redwood tree for planting at a local park. Photo by Marcus Moore

Releaf Petaluma ReLeaf Petaluma has an exciting and ambitious planting season ahead. We kicked off our season on October 21 with a Pod Leader training event. A pod is ReLeaf’s term for a group of 8-10 volunteers that work together to complete an assigned area. We planted eight beautiful redwood trees at Grant Park while…

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Jackson State Forest Update: CAL FIRE Poised to Restart Logging While Promises for Tribal Co-Management and Protection of Sacred Sites Go Unfulfilled

Activity in Jackson Forest in January of 2022 (Redtail plan) Photo by Chad Swimmer

Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters By Karen Pickett, Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters (BACH), Coalition to Save Jackson State Forest The good news is that quiet and calm settled into the Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF) during the last year and a half, absent roaring chainsaws and falling redwoods. The bad news is that the…

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Redwoods and Climate Change

In the wettest, foggiest part of the range, canopy communities include ferns, shrubs, and even trees growing high above the ground. Photo by S. Sillett

Vulnerability, Resilience, and Hope in the World’s Tallest Trees By Marie E. Antoine and Stephen C. Sillett, Cal Poly Humboldt Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) has a narrow and highly fragmented distribution along 460 miles of western North America. Although they occupy only a small land area, primary (unlogged, old-growth) redwood forests are globally renowned. Extreme…

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Northern California Tribes and Agencies Plan for Tribal Land Return 

Winnemem Wintu Chief Caleen Sisk (left) addresses panelists at the Northern California LandBack Symposium. All photos this article courtesy of Save California Salmon.

Tribes Ask State to Update Policies and Join Fight for Unrecognized Tribes and Water Protection at LandBack Symposium  Arcata, CA, from March 28, 2023 Press Release—Save California Salmon and Cal Poly Humboldt’s Native American Studies Department hosted the Northern California LandBack Symposium. This first-of-its-kind free event featured Tribal and State leaders, university representatives, foundations, NGOs,…

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Building a Local Workforce for the Restoration Economy

Crew break and check-in with the crew boss on the Redwood Forest Foundation, Inc. (RFFI) portion of the Northern Mendocino County Forest Health Collaborative project. all photos this article by Will Emerson, Northern Mendocino Ecosystem Recovery Alliance

By Cheyenne Clarke and Will Emerson, Northern Mendocino Ecosystem Recovery Alliance Extraction-based economies boom and bust. Resources run out. Industries collapse. Therefore, extraction is not a viable form of economic growth for the future. So, what is? Restoration, regeneration, and renewal. The restoration economy can fill the void left behind by extractive industries. To quote…

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Musings on Forest Health

Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities, Healthy Comebacks PG&E’s Line-Clearing, Why We Need More than Memes, and Some Key Definitions of Healthy and Forest By Jeff Hedin, Institute for Sustainable Forestry, Commissioner, Piercy Volunteer Fire Department This article has been edited for length. For the whole “poetic song” and its long email response thread, visit instituteforsustainableforestry.com/articles/forest-health. In…

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The Richard Gienger Report

A beautiful example of a decommissioned and recontoured road healing and growing back. photo by Ash Brookens

Time moves fast, stalwarts in mirror reflections, and we anxiously wait—while trying to prepare—for what Winter and Spring will bring. I feel daunted, almost swept away, in the layers of complexity of “all the relations,” the history, and realities we face. Remembering Influential Community Members Along with the joy of life-returning rains in September has…

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