Largest private giant sequoia grove for sale
FRESNO — The largest privately owned grove of giant sequoias – home to the world’s fifth largest known giant sequoia – is for sale.
A Tulare County family decided to sell it to Save the Redwoods League following years of discussions with the San Franciscobased conservation group, which has been eager to protect the property and add it to adjacent Giant Sequoia National Monument.
The league started a fundraising campaign this fall to acquire it, announcing it needed $15.65 million by Dec. 31 to purchase the Alder Creek property northeast of Springville and Porterville and south of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California’s Southern Sierra Nevada.
The league had raised $14.3 million as of Dec. 13. Donations have come from people in 19 countries and across all 50 U.S. states.
“It’s the most consequential giant sequoia project of our generation,” said Jessica Inwood, Save the Redwoods League parks program manager. “It’s the largest remaining giant sequoia grove in private ownership and a globallyunique, beautiful landscape.”
The league wants to restore the property over the next five to 10 years before transferring it to Giant Sequoia National Monument. The property is surrounded by the monument and Sequoia National Forest.
Teresa Benson, forest supervisor for Sequoia National Forest & Giant Sequoia National Monument, said the Alder Creek sequoia grove is “right up there with the greatest groves that we already manage.”
“It’s pretty extraordinary in terms of the monarch trees that are there – the really big massive ancient giant sequoias – and also a lot of good younger growth that’s occurring there,” Benson said. “It’s an absolute jewel.”
Inwood said giant sequoias are also important in combating climate change as great sequesters of carbon in the atmosphere.
Giant sequoia forests are among the Earth’s rarest ecosystems. The remaining ancient sequoias exist in about 73 groves along the western slopes of the Sierra in California, from Tahoe National Forest in the north to Giant Sequoia National Monument in the south.
The 530-acre Alder Creek grove is being compared to the 531-acre Mariposa Grove of Giant of Sequoias in Yosemite National Park, first protected by President Abraham Lincoln – a precursor to Yosemite’s protection as a park and the creation of the nation’s national park system.
The league said the
Alder Creek property has 483 giant sequoias with trunk diameters of six feet or more, and the famous Yosemite grove has 480.
The largest in the Alder Creek grove is the Stagg Tree, wider than a two-lane road and as tall as a 25-story building. It’s likely thousands of years old.
There’s already a public trail to this tree that would stay open if purchased by the league, which wants to add trails as well.
The Stagg Tree in the Alder Creek grove of giant sequoias is the fifth largest known tree in the world.
The property has been owned by the Rouch family since the 1940s. The logging family said they largely left the giant sequoias alone.