As Director of Land Transactions at Sempervirens Fund, Adrian Frediani’s work sits at the junction where conservation goals are forged into agreements that hold up financially, legally, and endure the test of time.

We spoke with Adrian about why fragmentation is so hard to reverse, what made 2025 a building year for future conservation, and why keeping redwood forests as redwood forests is often the most important goal of all. By keeping forests intact, we can implement forest health treatments more efficiently and effectively.

David Cowman, Sempervirens’ Director of Land Stewardship, helps guide Sempervirens’ approach to caring for protected redwood forests with the long- term in mind. His role brings together restoration forestry, wildfire resilience, watershed recovery, and partnership-based stewardship across some of the Santa Cruz Mountains’ most important landscapes. 

In this conversation, David discusses the shift from restoration to continuous stewardship, the lessons emerging five years after the CZU Fire, the decade of groundwork behind San Vicente Redwoods, and the collaborative effort now underway to help protect old-growth redwoods at Big Basin. 

Rachel Dann, Director of Government Relations at Sempervirens Fund, works at the intersection of conservation and government.

In this conversation, she reflects on the years of groundwork behind recent legislative wins, the push to streamline the transfer of protected lands to State Parks, the role of coalition building in uncertain moments, and the systems -level approach now shaping the future of redwood conservation.

As Director of Conservation Planning at Sempervirens Fund, Laura McLendon is tasked with helping build the connective tissue between land, people, and institutions that ensure nature is cared for far beyond our lifetimes.  

In this conversation, she reflects on how the relationship between people and the natural world has shaped her conservation work, how Sempervirens has changed over the past decade, and why redwood stewardship today must include public education, Indigenous partnership, and a deeper reckoning with fire, climate, and history

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.