SemperVoices

Redwoods drew artist Jane Kim to California more than 20 years ago and today she returns the favor, drawing redwoods to help people better connect with and draw inspiration from the natural world around us. The more she learns about redwoods as Sempervirens Fund’s first Forest Fellow, the more she contemplates people as redwoods’ exact opposite. Get a sneak peek at her new art and how she hopes celebrating redwood adaptations can inspire us to adapt to our ecosystem rather than change it.

Redwoods have captured our imagination for millennia. Despite several generations of conservation, care, and restoration, we still largely think of them as a resource for storing carbon, harboring wildlife, and sheltering waterways and habitats. They are, but for some, they are so much more, and perhaps we are so much less. In this issue of SemperVoices, we talk to contemporary artist Robert Buelteman about redwoods as an idea.

We spoke to biologist and redwood expert Emily Burns on what indicators herald signs of recovery in the forest. She gave us not only hope for the future, but a renewed sense of awe for the coast redwood forest.

The land is part of who we are. It is our history. We connected with Valentin Lopez, the chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, about efforts to re-learn and reclaim cultural traditions to care for the earth in their ancestral territory.

We recently connected with Gage Dayton and talked about exploring nature near home, learned how the Natural Reserves are faring in the time of COVID-19, and discussed recent work he and the University have undertaken to diversify the natural sciences profession.

Chris Wilmers leads the Puma Project, which focuses on understanding how humans influence the ecology, conservation, and management of mountain lions (or pumas) in the Santa Cruz mountains. We caught up with Chris to talk about pumas and the potential side effects of altered human behavior during the pandemic.