Some National Parks are created to preserve a rare species. Others are created to preserve a uniquely beautiful location. I’m sure there are other reasons that motivate a place being enshrined and protected as a US National Park.
Sequoia National Park was founded in 1890, to “protect giant sequoia trees, the largest living trees by volume on Earth,” according to the National Park Service website. In the early days of Sequoia NP, fire suppression was a major focus. It was fascinating to learn that in doing so for upwards of a century, we were actually threatening their existence. It turns out that the seed cones of the giant Sequoia trees require the high-temperature heat from wildfires to release their seeds. And natural thinning by wildfire is also needed to provide adequate sunlight for the new trees.
In the end, modern researchers have provided better guidance to preserve these gentle giants, who are obviously resilient to fire. It was hard to find one of these up to 2000-year-old trees that hadn’t been scarred from fires at some point.
This is an important lesson to think about on this 54th Earth Day. We should act with preservation and conservation in mind, but learn and adapt to the best methods. Sometimes we are wrong.
Sheila365 