The Richard Gienger Report

Richard Gienger addresses Geneva Thompson, California Assistant Secretary of Tribal Affairs, at a recent LandBack Symposium (see page 18 for details). Ellen Taylor and Michael Evenson of Lost Coast League listen on right. Photo by Kerry Reynolds

Nancy Peregrine and the Fight for Sally Bell Grove Remembered, Paying Attention to Local Forestry, Enacting Good Stewardship, Book Nook Once again, some things to share: Part of my last column was dedicated to Nancy Peregrine, Fred “Coyote” Downey, and Lon Mulvaney, all lost by the community recently. This column is being drafted just before…

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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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The Richard Gienger Report

Got the existential blues these days, except for the wonderful return of the rains since the 15th of October. From dry or barely damp stream and river beds to record flows for the month of October. Bursting optimism for salmon migration and spawning and for continued rains through the fall, winter, and spring. Lingering concern…

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Then & Now! Richard Gienger Report

Craig Bell on site of riparian recovery (2011 during a Coho Confab) gesturing and describing the restoration project in the lower Garcia River which he catalyzed and led in its implementation. On the right side of the river, across from Craig and the group, the replanted alders and associated efforts stabilized sheer, unprotected, and eroding banks often 15 to 20 feet high. The subsequent results included substantive improvements in stream/river habitat for coho & Chinook salmon and steelhead — as well as other water dependent and terrestrial and avian wildlife.

Then from Trees Foundation’s Branching Out, Winter 1998-99, first Diggin’ In It’s hard to know where to start in the midst of so many pressing issues about the forestland watersheds and people of California’s North Coast. Perhaps it is best for me to go back to some of the personal perspectives that I and others…

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The Richard Gienger Report

Rugged boulder channel of lower Standley Creek near the South Fork Eel River. Note the Redwood seedling rising between two mossy rocks in the right foreground.

Sort of getting claustrophobic, whether it’s North Coast, West Coast, Western Hemisphere, or the World. I just reread “Diggin’ In #65” (F&R News, Winter 2020/21). Hecka lot of information there. Don’t know how I managed that, and now there’s even more to consider and navigate. I should start with younger times when I was engaged…

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Diggin’ In: The Richard Gienger Report

Large cutdown tree in a forest
Mature forest felled on RAinbow Ridge. This is what is at issue on Rainbow Ridge: the last remnants of mature forest. Photo by Mattole Forest Defense

Insist on California setting a course that will take generations of commitment to return healthy, high-quality forests to our region—and not settle for 5 years of “stepped-up pace and scale” of thinning and prescribed fire. Attaining larger and older trees is integral to fighting climate change and as necessary as human communities’ need to reform settlement patterns and impacts. See Why Forests Matter’s website, and for California’s emergency moving parts, processes, documents, and recordings, go to
fmtf.fire.ca.gov

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Diggin’ In: The Richard Gienger Report

Sure gets tough making sense of so much all at once and over lifetimes. Right now we are in the beginning throes of dealing with a virus that already is affecting millions around the world with not just threat of sickness or death but the disruption of multiple layers, numbers, and types of relationships and…

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