Sempervirens Fund

Cotoni-Coast Dairies — The long path to monument status

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Cotoni-Coast Dairies — The long path to monument status

by Betsy Herbert, Earth Matters

published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel 01/19/2017

Who could imagine that the Cotoni-Coast Dairies property — once proposed by PG&E as the site of a nuclear power plant — would eventually become a national monument? But it’s true. On Jan. 12, President Barack Obama granted national monument status to this 5,875-acre property on Santa Cruz County’s North Coast.

Unquestionably, this iconic landscape is truly worthy of monument status ... for its scenic beauty and natural resources and as a tribute to the dramatic history of the land and the people who have dedicated themselves to protecting it.

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Process underway to transform Davenport cement plant

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Process underway to transform Davenport cement plant

From the seventh floor of the Davenport cement plant cooling tower on a sunny morning last week, I was wowed by a panoramic view of the Santa Cruz County coastline and surrounding Coast Dairies property, now proposed as a national monument.

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Redwood Champions Amid Drought and Climate Change

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Redwood Champions Amid Drought and Climate Change

by Betsy Herbert, Ph.D.

published in the Mountain Echo, newsletter of the Sempervirens Fund, Fall 2014

Redwoods are extraordinary. The more we learn about them, the more extraordinary they prove to be. We’ve known for a long time that California’s coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) are the world’s tallest trees and among the longest-living. Scientists are now confirming that redwoods play an important role in the local water cycle and in achieving a healthy, stable climate.

By meticulously measuring redwoods, scientists are determining how fast they’re growing, storing carbon and capturing fog, and how they are responding to climate change. For example, a team of scientists is working on the “Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative” (RCCI), with support from Sempervirens Fund, to quantify how accelerating climate change is affecting California’s redwoods.

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Reason enough to hug a tree: Coast redwoods combat climate change

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Reason enough to hug a tree: Coast redwoods combat climate change

Did you know that the world’s forests, including California’s coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) are helping in a big way to combat climate change? As forests grow, they pull vast amounts of carbon out of the air and store it within their enormous biomass. Forests cover about 30 percent of the earth’s surface, so climate change scientists are looking at the forests with renewed interest to help solve the world’s carbon problem.

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All eyes now on conservation plan

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All eyes now on conservation plan

On Dec. 16, Peninsula Open Space Trust [POST] and Sempervirens Fund became the official owners of the 8,532-acre property known as Cemex Redwoods, the largest expanse of unprotected redwood forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The $30 million purchase from Cemex, the largest producer of cement in North America, was jointly announced Dec. 8 by the five conservation groups partnering in the deal [POST, Sempervirens Fund, the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, LTSCC, Save the Redwoods League and the Nature Conservancy].

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