Every so often, someone will ask me, "Why is it important to keep adding more land to existing redwood parks?"  This is a great question, because they might just as well be asking me, "Why does Sempervirens Fund exist?"

By adding more land to existing redwood parks, we can preserve not only the awe-inspiring specimens of giant size and great age, but we can also preserve the natural character and health of the regional ecosystem. These notions are reflected in the Sempervirens Fund mission statement.

"Tree Museums" vs. Healthy Forests
In many ways, a small redwood park is like a "tree museum".  It's impressive and easy to view in an afternoon, but it's typically too small to sustain the true natural character associated with a healthy redwood forest.  A very large redwood park, however, can thrive as a vital ecosystem, rich with the type of geographic and species diversity that naturally promotes the health of all living things within it.

Scientific studies have shown that the ecosystem of a single large forest is much healthier than an equal area of small patches of forest.  So one 500-acre forest, for example, will typically be more ecologically sound than fifty 10-acre parcels.  Making small parks bigger does make a difference.

These same studies also show that the health of a forest improves when land is added to a redwood park that is already pretty big. But why does the addition of more land make such a difference?  Scientists and foresters often cite three reasons:  "edge effects", "linkages" and "stewardship".

Edge Effects
Roads. Housing. Logging activity. Industrial pollution. There are forest threats aplenty at the edges of our protected redwood park lands.  Such "edge effects" can alter light penetration, increase wind damage, decrease humidity, contaminate watershed, and promote the encroachment of invasive species. And these effects can extend well into the forest from its perimeter.  Small forest parcels are very susceptible to edge effects.  But large blocks of forest land are far better protected from edge effects.

In the Santa Cruz Mountains, the threat from edge effects is severe.

• About a third of the nearly 400 Timber Harvest Plans that have been approved within Santa Cruz County since 1990 are within 1 mile of a state park border.

• The population of the Bay Area has increased by 50% since 1970, putting more recreational demands on our mountain forests and open spaces.

• The once lightly populated mountain communities of Boulder Creek, Felton and Scotts Valley are becoming more urbanized, resulting in more cleared land for housing and more erosion from poorly maintained and heavily used mountain roads and driveways.

By expanding redwood parkland, the threat from edge effects can be mitigated by creating new buffer zones around older forests, and by expanding the recreational landscape to better absorb the impact from a growing population of park users.

Linkages     
The 'bio-region' of the Santa Cruz Mountains is a big, contiguous landscape. It can't all be protected as parkland. Yet simple linkages between parks can provide enormous ecological advantages.

By expanding linkages between the redwood parks in the Santa Cruz Mountains, birds and other animals that require large territories can benefit from the connected parklands and the safe corridors they provide.  By linking sensitive streams, watershed lands, and wildlife habitat to existing parklands, the natural character of the greater regional ecosystem can be preserved.

Sempervirens Fund has helped establish a myriad of linkages between coastal redwood parks, as shown on the map of completed projects. Among the most strategically important linkages are those that have been established between Big Basin Redwood State Park and:

• Castle Rock State Park
• Butano State Park
• Pescadero County Park
• Año Nuevo State Reserve
• the Pacific shore at Waddell Beach

Stewardship
By having larger contiguous tracts of forest protected under direct state supervision, the overall management of our redwood parks can become much more effective.  The Master Plan for Big Basin State Park that is currently under development would be much more difficult to implement in the park's original fragmented state.  And the acquisition and consolidation of redwood parklands in the Santa Cruz Mountains would occur at a snail's pace, were it not for the close collaboration between Sempervirens Fund and various parks agencies.    

Where does it end?
	How much longer should we continue to add to the parks?
	**	We should continue adding parkland until the regional ecosystem of the Santa Cruz Mountains is healthy.
	**	We should continue adding parkland until the region's tremendous biodiversity is protected.
	**	We should continue adding parkland until there is a sustainable balance between conservation, recreation, and commercial use of our forests.
	We are not there yet, but with the support and dedication of the thousands of members of Sempervirens Fund, we can get there -- piece by piece.
______ Note: Originally published in 2002; photo courtesy of, and copyright 2008, John King; Brian Steen, B.Sc. Forestry, Executive Director of Sempervirens Fund, 1999-2008; Chris Brinegar, Ph.D., Professor of Biology, Emeritus, San Jose State University.