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Eradicating Non-Native Species at San Vicente Redwoods

Clematis vitalba is an extremely aggressive, invasive, non-native plant that grows quickly and spreads easily. Across four years of treatment, Sempervirens Fund and partners successfully reduced Clematis vitalba cover to near 0% throughout the lower reaches of San Vicente Redwoods.

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Preserve the Gateway to Big Basin

Join Sempervirens Fund to preserve the Gateway to Big Basin. Together, we have the opportunity to permanently protect 153 acres of redwood forests and preserve a scenic approach into Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Donate by January 31 and your gift will be matched dollar for dollar up to $200,000.

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San Vicente Creek: Restoring a Stronghold

Mill Creek had been blocked since early in the last century by a 12-foot-tall, 25-foot-wide dam a quarter mile upstream from its confluence with the main aquatic thoroughfare, San Vicente Creek. In September 2021, that dam was removed, giving Mill Creek another half mile of free flow. The story of removing Mill Creek’s dam is a story about the pieces that fit together to bring life and vitality to an ecosystem.

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San Vicente Creek Flow By Ian Bornarth

Mill Creek Dam and the San Vicente Watershed

An old dam has denied endangered Coho salmon their critical spawning ground and redwood forests their nutrients for over a century in the Santa Cruz Mountains. This is the story of bringing down a dam to restore the southernmost habitat for Coho and coast redwoods.

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Nature Needs Time to Heal

The CZU fire transformed Big Basin Redwoods State Park in a matter of hours. Its effects will linger for hundreds of years. The forest is expected to rebound, eventually, more or less—but when? How long until the forest looks, feels, sounds, and smells like the place we knew?

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CZU Anniversary

On August 16, 2020 a climate-fueled-weather event sparked the most catastrophic fire ever recorded in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Over the next month, fire raged through the region impacting lives, communities, parks, and some of the most ancient and beloved remaining coast redwood forests in the world. A year later, we look back at the CZU Fire.

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What is Stewardship?

Learn what benefits stewardship brings to redwood forests. Stewardship has been a popular word for some time, and, although Sempervirens Fund staff have gotten pretty familiar with it, we want to make sure you know what we mean when we say “stewardship.”. After all, it is because of you that we are able to steward redwood forestlands, an activity that is at the core of our mission. Stewardship can comprise a whole host of activities associated with caring for the land.

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