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Capping one of the most significant redwood preservation deals in the Santa Cruz Mountains over the past 20 years, the non-profit Save the Redwoods League has signed an agreement to buy 564 acres of redwood forests and other lands near the San Mateo-Santa Cruz county line for $9 million.
The property, owned by the Holmes family of Danville since 1978, features more than 100 acres of old-growth redwoods, including one massive tree that scientists say is 528 years old — meaning it was growing in the same spot when Christopher Columbus set sail for the Americas in 1492.
Known as Cascade Creek, the property is carpeted with giant ferns and defined by deep canyons, nearly two miles of creeks and a 50-foot-high waterfall. It has been sought after by biologists, park rangers and environmental groups for 40 years.
Perhaps most important, the land links two of Northern California’s most high-profile state parks — Big Basin Redwoods and Año Nuevo — just east of Highway 1 between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz, preserving a vital undisturbed corridor for wildlife, and maybe one day, hikers.
“This property is a linchpin in a landscape that’s part of what makes the Bay Area so special,” said Sam Hodder, president and CEO of Save the Redwoods League.
Hodder said the league’s goal is to add the land to the state parks system. The longtime owners agree.
“It’s a piece of property that should be a part of the state parks,” said Larry Holmes, who owns the property with his wife Bronia. “We’ve known that for many years. And then when you realize that 95% of the old-growth redwoods were cut at one time, it’s very important to save the redwood trees.”
Holmes’ late parents, Mildred and Lester Holmes, bought the property as part of their logging business, Holmes Lumber Company, which operated a mill in Scotts Valley that closed in 1981 and a mill in Arcata that closed in 1957. They logged the property last in the 1980s, cutting mostly younger trees. But a significant number of old-growth trees were left.
“The main reasons we want to save this property are for future generations, for my grandchildren, their children, and for the planet,” said Bronia Holmes. “It’s a good feeling knowing that it’s going to be forever preserved.”
Had Save the Redwoods League not purchased the Cascade Creek property, it could have been developed into up to eight luxury home sites under its existing zoning, or possibly logged heavily by a future owner.
Lisa Mangat, California’s state parks director, congratulated the league on the purchase, and said the property is one that her department will consider for purchase.
“Over the years, park partners have acquired properties intending that they would eventually be protected through the state park system in perpetuity,” she said. “State parks will be exploring opportunities to acquire properties, including those proposed by the Save the Redwoods League.”
Whether or not there is funding to add Cascade Creek to the state parks system and open regular public access remains to be seen.
Because of budget shortfalls during the Great Recession, and later the reluctance of former Gov. Jerry Brown, California has not opened a new state park since 2009, when the U.S. Army donated four miles of beaches in Monterey County to become Fort Ord Dunes State Park. That 11-year drought is the longest stretch since the state parks department was established in 1927.
As a result, California’s 280 state parks, beaches and historic sites are getting more crowded as population grows. Parking and camping sites are harder to find. Some land is being lost to development.
Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced as part of his proposed 2020-21 budget a $20 million investment to establish a new state park. Although Newsom didn’t name it, that parcel is widely believed to be the N3 Ranch, a 51,000-acre cattle ranch in the hills near Livermore that the Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land have been negotiating to buy from a family who has owned it for 85 years and recently put it up for sale.
Apart from that $20 million, however, Newsom’s budget proposal contains only $4.6 million in other funding to buy land for state beaches, campgrounds, forests and parks across the entire state. The last parks bond, Proposition 68, which voters approved two years ago, provided the bulk of its funding to local and regional parks, many in Southern California cities, along with water projects, rather than state parks.
Environmental groups and some state legislators are working with Newsom to place a $4.75 billion “Climate Resilience Bond” on the November ballot. If approved by voters, it would fund wildfire protection, forest thinning, sea-level rise, and flood control projects. It also could contain some funding to preserve redwood forests, which store large amounts of carbon.
Thursday’s purchase is the latest in a string of major deals by the San Francisco-based redwoods league, which was founded in 1918.
Over the past three years the group has purchased the two largest remaining ancient giant sequoia forests left in private ownership in the world, the 530-acre Alder Creek property in Tulare County, for $15.6 million, and Red Hill, a 160-acre forest eight miles to the south, for $3.3 million.
The league plans to transfer both to the U.S. Forest Service over the next decade, so they can be included in the Giant Sequoia National Monument, a part of Sequoia National Forest.
Two years ago, the league also purchased the largest remaining old-growth coast redwood forest in the world, a remote 730-acre parcel on the Sonoma Coast west of Santa Rosa. That property, bought in an $18.1 million deal, is called the Harold Richardson Redwoods Reserve, after a 96-year-old logger who died in 2016 and who owned the land for generations but refused to cut down the massive, primeval trees.
“Redwoods are iconic, they are timeless,” Hodder said. “They have been around for millions of years before humans walked the Earth. People have an intuitive and intrinsic connection with them.”
