Groups sue to stop the replanting of sequoia groves
This fall, the National Park Service embarked upon a colossal effort to replant six groves of giant sequoias that burned in wildfires in California’s southern Sierra Nevada, an endeavor that park officials say is necessary to ensure a future for the climate-threatened trees.
On Friday, a handful of conservation groups filed suit to stop the work.
The groups contend that the project, which entails planting tens of thousands of sequoia seedlings on charred hillsides in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, is inappropriate because the burned areas are designated “wilderness,” where human intervention is prohibited. Contrary to what park officials say, the litigants assert that replanting trees is not needed for the groves to successfully regenerate.
“Wilderness is for natural processes and natural succession,” said Chad Hanson, research ecologist and director of the John Muir Project, one of four organizations involved in the legal action against the park service. “It’s not supposed to be a managed landscape for tree plantations.”
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Fresno, was submitted as an addendum to a suit filed earlier this year that challenged the park service for other forestry work in wilderness areas of Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. In addition to planting trees, park crews have been thinning and burning forests around sequoia groves to try to reduce wildfire risk.
Both the fire-prevention work and the tree-replanting project come in the aftermath of blazes that wiped out unprecedented numbers of sequoia trees. By park service estimates, up to 19% of California’s mature sequoias were killed by wildfires in 2020 and 2021.
The conifers, which can live for 3,000 years and grow to 300
feet tall and 30 feet wide at their base, occur naturally only on the western slopes of the Sierra. About half of the roughly 75 to 80 groves are at Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.
While the thick-barked species enjoys partial immunity to fire and even relies on it for reproduction, scientists say the warming climate has made wildfires worse and deadlier for the trees. Misguided forestry practices, which have sought to suppress beneficial small and moderate fires and allowed woodlands to become overly dense, have also worsened conditions for sequoias.
To ensure the survival of the giants, officials at Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks developed a plan to use mule trains
and possibly helicopters to haul seedlings into parts of the backcountry and reestablish more than 1,200 acres of sequoia forest. Some of the new trees are being grown from seeds outside the area to try to increase genetic diversity and durability.
Over the past two months, nearly 1,000 acres have been replanted, according to park officials, at and around Redwood Mountain Grove and Board Camp Grove. The work has finished for the season and is expected to pick up next year, with planting and monitoring likely to continue well beyond.
Park officials declined to comment on the new lawsuit, citing a policy of not talking about current litigation. But officials say protecting the trees by restoring
the groves is their mandate, the most responsible course of action and scientifically sound.
“There’s a lot of research behind what we’re doing,” said parks Public Affairs Officer Sintia Kawasaki-Yee, noting that the park service has collaborated with scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, Forest Service and UC Davis. “It’s not a decision that’s taken lightly.”
Critics, however, have questioned the park service’s judgment on several fronts. Not only do they say that it’s inappropriate to manipulate wilderness but that it’s unnecessary because the burned sequoia forests, they say, are already showing signs of regeneration.
The conservation groups involved in the lawsuit have challenged
park scientists on how many seedlings must naturally emerge after fire for the groves to regrow. They also contend that there are far more seedlings in burnt areas than the park service has found.
“These recent fires have been a significant benefit to sequoia groves,” Hanson said. “That story just hasn’t been told.”
Park officials, in the past, have dismissed the independent assessments.
The other litigants in the amended lawsuit include Wilderness Watch, Sequoia Forestkeeper and the Tule River Conservancy.