Kids & Family

Redwoods Saved by Land Trust, Homeowners in Unusual Arrangement

Old growth redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains were at imminent risk of being harvested and lost forever.

—By L.A. Chung—

In a first for the land trust Sempervirens Fund, the non-profit announced the purchase of timber rights in Redwoods Meadows Ranch near Bonny Doon Thursday, in an unusual cooperative arrangement with a homeowners association to protect 151 acres of redwood trees. 

The purchase includes old-growth and second growth redwoods marked for harvest under a pending timber harvest plan (THP), said its executive director, Reed Holderman.

“There were definitely a lot of strong feelings and competing interests involved in this transaction,” said sellers Robin and Bill Cunningham, who had filed a timber harvest plan for the property. “But Sempervirens Fund turned it into a win-win situation.”

The property includes the headwaters of Mill Creek, which serves as an alternate source of drinking water for the town of Davenport, and is identified by Sempervirens Fund as a high priority for conservation. 

Protecting Redwood Meadows Ranch further connects the 8,500-acre CEMEX Redwoods, owned by Sempervirens Fund and Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), and the 7,000-acre Coast Dairies owned by The Trust for Public Land.

By protecting Redwood Meadows Ranch, Holderman said, Sempervirens Fund continues to reassemble the local redwood landscape and recreate a more vibrant and healthy redwood forest between Silicon Valley and the Pacific Ocean. 

Sempervirens is a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and is the oldest land trust in California. Yet Holderman called Thursday's action a first.

“Sempervirens Fund has never before purchased timber rights severed from fee title," Holderman said. "But there is always a first for everything, as we pioneer new land protection techniques tailor-made to each situation. 

"We are proud to join with the Redwood Meadows Ranch Homeowners Association to find a local solution to a local issue that potentially had larger implications for the entire Mill Creek watershed.” 

Redwood Meadows Ranch was created as a planned unit development in 1984 by Bill Cunningham. Cunningham retained timber rights over the property, and recently filed a THP over much of the redwood lands. 

“The redwoods here were at imminent risk of being harvested and lost forever,”  Holderman said.

Local residents were eager to protect the redwoods and contacted Sempervirens Fund with a plan to purchase the timber rights. Individual members of the Redwoods Meadows Ranch Homeowner’s Association contributed approximately half the funds to complete the $500,000 purchase.

“When we thought about protecting these redwoods, we thought of Sempervirens Fund,” said Homeowner’s Association President Pamela Koch. “We learned that Sempervirens Fund had identified the area as a high priority for protection, and we’re both thrilled and grateful that they were able to negotiate a way to save these magnificent redwoods.” 


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