Amid changing climate, groups work to save Oakland's redwoods
OAKLAND – To understand why redwoods have captivated our imagination for centuries, head away from the hustle and bustle of Oakland to Joaquin Miller Park and look up.
"There's something about them that when you're in the forest, they just dwarf you and you feel so humbled by them. They're quite beautiful," said Rob Leidy, a retired ecologist and a member of a nonprofit called Friends of Sausal Creek.
According to Leidy, this redwood forest in the Oakland Hills is rooted in history.
"These redwoods that you see now, their parents were around when the Roman Empire was around," he said.
But these days, these majestic trees, among the oldest in the world, are struggling.
"They're being loved to death basically. This park was set up in the 1950s ostensibly to protect these trees," he said. "But because it's on the edge of a very dense urban area, it gets a lot of use."
For the last decade, Leidy and his team have been racing against the clock, restoring the forest's essential ground vegetation, and adding rails to keep park visitors away from the trees' roots.
"Once the trampling is reduced and people stay on the trial, the forest is naturally regenerative," he said. "It's a very resilient forest if you give it the chance to resort itself."
But that might not be enough. As temperatures increase due to climate change, coastal fog — essential to these trees' survival -- has been eroding. Meanwhile, wildfires have become more frequent and more intense.
According to Deborah Zierten from Save the Redwoods League, these trees remove more carbon from the atmosphere per acre than any other forest on Earth.
Because most redwoods are on private land, her organization has been buying hundreds of acres of trees as a way to protect them.
"We only have about 5% of the old-growth redwood forest left. So, much of those old ancient trees were cut down," she said.
The good news, according to Leidy, is that with a little TLC, these redwoods could be here for centuries to come. But while he's optimistic, he's also keenly aware that these ancient trees, aren't out of the woods just yet.
"Right here in Oakland, we have this natural forest that is nature's carbon sequestrator," he said. "If it's managed properly, and it's healthy, and it's allowed to do what it does, it's an amazing solution or contribution to climate change."