What if they made a park and nobody came? A new park saved the tall trees, but at a high cost to the community
Kiester jr. E. 1993. What if they made a park and nobody came? A new park saved the tall trees, but at a high cost to the community. Smithsonian. 24(7):42-54
The trees are house-tall now, reaching toward the 350 foot heights they may eventually attain. On once cut over slopes below the Tall Trees Overlook in California's Redwood National Park, the young redwoods now march downhill, to the bend in Redwood Creek where the world's tallest trees rise out of the mist. Green stripes of grasses and hardwoods mark where old logging roads have been bulldozed and the hill graded back to its natural contours. In the rushing waters below, salmon and steelhead trout can again head upstream to spawn. Art Eck, deputy superintendent of the park, looks about him approvingly. The overlook's display of before-and-after photographs contrasts the scene with the hillside as it looked a few years ago: an ugly battlefield of stumps, slash and chewed -up earth crisscrossed by the gashes of roads and skid trails. Now, thanks to the restoration effort, the forest is returning to it's past appearance, before the saws and axes came. "The land is healing," Eck says proudly. "But of course, some scars still show."
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Kiester jr., Edwin
- Units
- REDW
- Keywords
- Arcata Redwood, Art Eck, Arthur D. Little, Bayshore Shopping Mall, Bill Ehorn, Charles Hurwitz, Charles Rankin, Chris Rowney, Del Norte County, Donovan Tolman, Earl Roberts, Gus Peterson, Humboldt County, Humboldt State University, Jay Barneburg, Jim Owens, Jim Yarbrough, John Campbell, John Cummings, John Dewitt, John Grobey, John Pritchett, Louisiana-Pacific Company, Lucille Vineyard, Lumberjack Lounge, Maxxam Corporation, Miller Redwood Company, Pat Dorsey, Pelican Bay Prision, Prairie Creek State Park, President Jimmy Carter, Redwood Employees Protection Program, Save-the-Redwood, Shirley Brown, Sierra Club, Simpson Timber, Triplicate, Western Ancient Forest Campaign
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Human Use | Point-Source Human Effects | Point-Source Human Effects