MENDOCINO, 11/26/23 – Acclaimed redwood activist, journalist and author Greg King will speak about his new book The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods on December 2. King will be joined by local climate change scientist Dr. John O’Brien, who will give an update about how climate change is impacting local ecosystems and forest management, specifically at Jackson State Demonstration Forest. Only 100 tickets are available and reservations are required.
Here’s the official announcement:
Anyone concerned about forest health and climate change will not want to miss a special free event on December 2 from 1 to 3 p.m. at Mendocino’s Stanford Inn.
Author Greg King, who helped initiate the “redwood wars” after Maxxam’s notorious 1985 takeover of the Pacific Lumber Company in Humboldt County, will discuss his new book, The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods. Rich with historical information and references, The Ghost Forest explores the decimation of the coastal redwood forest and the players involved, from the nineteenth century to today, and provides the first critical examination of the history of the Save the Redwoods League. King describes how corporate shenanigans and over-harvesting have left the North Coast with almost no old-growth redwood forests – shenanigans secretly undergirded by Save the Redwoods League. The Ghost Forest also describes the historical citizen-driven efforts that helped slow the decimation of redwood treasures. Signed copies of The Ghost Forest will be available for purchase.
King will present along with coast resident John O’Brien, Ph.D, a climate scientist & research affiliate in the Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and who served as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. O’Brien will provide an up-to-date accounting of current climate change and how our ecosystems are responding to such change. He will also present a quantitative overview of forest resources and management in the redwood region, with an emphasis on Jackson State Demonstration Forest.
O’Brien and fellow scientist, Dr. Stephen Sillett of Cal Poly Humboldt recently submitted a paper to Cal Fire and the Jackson Advisory Group related to the “New Vision” plan for JDSF. They pointed out that global air temperatures this past July “soared above anything previously experienced . . . [and] nothing about this is normal. [W]e have entered a climate that humans have never experienced.” O’Brien & Sillett noted that, “Somewhat surprisingly, mature secondary redwood forests are far more rare than primary (old-growth) forests due to logging pressure. [T]hese less-than-100 year old forests now contain the most valuable (economically and ecologically) trees not protected in parks and reserves, as North Coast redwoods have been virtually completely logged over.” Today’s local forests “are just a mere shadow of their former selves.”
In researching The Ghost Forest, Greg King scoured nearly ten thousand pages of curate archives at Berkeley’s Bancroft Library to develop the most comprehensive account yet available of one of the world’s greatest natural phenomena – the unique redwood belt – and document multigenerational efforts exploiting this special redwood biome in service to the manufacture of American empire.
Famed author Richard Preston (The Wild Trees) said, “The Ghost Forest is the book I’ve long wished someone would write, and Greg King has done it luminously well. Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, Inc., said The Ghost Forest is a page-turner, a calibrated adventure of the highest sort … a story necessarily written by the most committed of redwood defenders.” David Rains Wallace found the book composed of “poetic fervor, scientific precision, political wisdom, and a droll, self-deprecating sense of humor” that clarifies the heyday of forest activism.
This event is co-hosted by Mendocino Coast Environmental Scholarship Program, the Gallery Bookshop & Bookwinkle’s Children’s Books, and the Mendocino Eco Education & Events non-profit. Seating will be limited and reservations are required. Special vegan finger food by Stanford chefs, accompanied by a no-host wine/beer bar. Donations will be accepted to offset event costs.
To reserve a seat, email sid@sidgarzahillman.com. Questions? Contact Rod Jones at 937-0549 or rodjones@mcn.org.