Lands, Watersheds and Ecosystems to be Restored and Reconnected.
Redwoods Rising Accomplishments from 2020-2024
Overall project goals:
First areas to be addressed:
Early 2020-early 2022:
The Greater Mill Creek (GMC) Watershed is in the northern part of Redwood National and State Parks and is south and south-east of Crescent City. GMC restoration is mostly in Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. The Greater Prairie Creek (GPC) Watershed is in the southern part of Redwood National and State Parks and is north and north-west of Orick. The GPC project area is in both Redwood National Park and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. 
Save the Redwoods League Summary of the CollaborativeRedwoods Rising is a restoration and land management collaborative among California State Parks, Redwood National Park, and the Save the Redwoods League.This is a fresh approach to a long-shared partnership, building upon decades of collaborative efforts to protect and restore the park’s redwood forest ecosystems. This collaborative was catalyzed by a growing need to think about resource stewardship across boundaries at the systems level while embracing the principles of resiliency and landscape connectivity. This effort is intended to be responsive to that need by providing an avenue for sharing resources to get the work done. You can watch a short video about the day this collaborative officially began. Read an August 2020 blog from a League forester as he documents progress with Redwoods Rising. The complexity and costs of restoration continue to increase, making strategically coordinated project planning, execution, and funding more critical than ever. At the same time, scaling up and accelerating the pace of restoration activities is necessary at the landscape level if the park’s fragmented ecosystems are to be resilient to the harmful impacts of drought, fire, disease, invasive species, and climate change. Redwoods Rising brings together the existing Redwood National and State Parks partnership with the League to more strategically and efficiently address these needs. It serves to formalize the existing relationships among these organizations and further leverage the strengths of each partner, while also working to engage local tribes and communities in this focused effort. Furthermore, Redwoods Rising hopes to increase the pace and scale of restoration by pooling resources across boundaries, and truly achieve landscape-scale restoration. An example of this partnership is the Forest Apprenticeship Program, provided by Save the Redwoods League. Each summer starting in 2018, Humboldt State University students have supported essential mapping, data collection, and monitoring for forest restoration. Additionally, in the winters of 2017-2019, the League funded and hired a "Storm Patrol" crew. These contractors became the first formalized Storm Patrol team in Redwood National Park. Their work in monitoring and protecting legacy logging roads from catastrophic failure was essential to the long-term health of the parks' rivers and forests. The partnership continues to support a year-round roads and storm patrol position.
Where Can I Find Out More About Redwoods Rising?Even though we still are at the beginning of this ambitious project - there are plenty of ways to learning more about Redwoods Rising. In the years ahead, our restoration projects webpages will continue to grow. Save The Redwoods League has great information about this collaborative project. The California Department of Parks and Recreation also has information and videos about Redwoods Rising. If you want to dig much deeper into the history, goals, management and potential ecosystem benefits of this program, then spend time with our frequently asked questions. 
Dave Van De Mark, John Chao, NPS |
Last updated: June 6, 2024