A Shadowy “Coalition” is Destroying Giant Sequoia Groves on Public Lands

Written by:
Chad Hanson, Ph.D., Wildfire Scientist
John Muir Project
(www.johnmuirproject.org)

As I write this, a shadowy coalition is making substantial sums of money exploiting and destroying giant sequoia groves on public lands and lying about it. The “Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition” (GSLC), comprised of federal and California land management agencies and other entities financially involved in logging, is currently clearcutting old-growth stands, conducting large post-fire clearcut logging projects, and logging huge trees in the Giant Sequoia National Monument, and Yosemite National Park, within and adjacent to giant sequoia groves. They are doing this with limited or no environmental analysis or public participation, and often no public notice at all. And much more of this will happen, in many more giant sequoia groves, if the deceptive and profoundly dangerous logging bill promoted by the GSLC, the so-called Save Our Sequoias Act, is passed by the U.S. Senate.

The Act passed the House and is now in the Senate (S. 4103, Padilla, D-CA; Curtis, R-UT), where the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee plans to hold a hearing today (September 16, 2026) to promote this bill, and the false narrative upon which it is built. If S. 4103 is passed, the old-growth logging and clearcutting occurring currently within and near sequoia groves would escalate dramatically, since the bill would override federal environmental laws to severely curtail or eliminate public participation and disclosures about adverse environmental impacts. Giant sequoia groves and adjacent old-growth forests in the Sequoia Monument, Yosemite National Park, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks would be open to industrial logging under the deceptive guises of euphemisms like “thinning”, “fuel reduction”, “restoration”, “forest health”, and “reforestation”. Giant sequoia trees could and would be cut. The bill’s terms even apply the logging provisions to designated Wilderness Areas. And here’s the kicker: the Act would turn over management of all giant sequoia groves on public lands, and vast areas of adjacent old-growth forests, to the GSLC and logging companies, cutting the public out.

How did this happen? Aside from the Congressional Republicans and Democrats who are squarely in the logging industry’s pocket, how did so many others get snowed and misled? The answer is that GSLC member entities, and associated logging industry advocacy organizations, have been running an aggressive disinformation and propaganda campaign to prop up the political narrative that they concocted to keep vast sums of public funds flowing from taxpayer coffers into their pockets to subsidize their destructive activities. The GSLC’s false narrative would have us believe that recent wildfires have destroyed large portions of giant sequoia groves, and that logging, intensive herbicide (glyphosate) spraying, and industrial tree plantations are needed supposedly to prevent or curb future fires and “reforest” giant sequoia groves. In particular, the GSLC claims that giant sequoias are incapable of regenerating in high-intensity fire patches, especially large high-intensity fire patches with substantial areas of crown fire, where the flames reached the tops of the trees. These are lies. In fact, there is abundant, rapidly-growing giant sequoia regeneration in large, intense crown fire patches; in contrast, giant sequoias cannot effectively reproduce in lower-intensity surface fire areas, like prescribed burns.

The GSLC knows this to be true, but doesn’t want you to realize it. Some government scientists issued a report finding an astonishing average of about 17,000 giant sequoia seedlings per acre in large high-intensity fire patches after recent wildfires, contradicting the political narrative the GSLC has been using to keep the “gravy train” of public funding running to subsidize logging and industrial tree plantation forestry. Shortly thereafter, the sequoia regeneration data were manipulated and falsified by the GSLC, and a new version of the report was issued with fraudulent sequoia regeneration density figures far lower than the actual data presented in the original report. No explanation was given, and the GSLC has refused to respond to questions about the data fabrication.

Recently, the GSLC, which was created by the Biden Administration, has gotten even worse in the Trump Administration. Here are just a few among many examples:

• The GSLC just clearcut a portion of the iconic Mariposa Giant Sequoia Grove in Yosemite National Park, logging many huge old-growth trees and selling them to logging companies.
• The GSLC claimed that imperiled Condors, Fishers, and Spotted Owls would not use the recent fire areas, and supposedly would not be impacted by post-fire logging, but all three species have been found actively using and inhabiting these fire areas, including the high-intensity patches. Our research, based on the government’s own Condor GPS tracking data, documented that dozens of endangered Condors are now preferentially selecting high-intensity fire patches in the Sequoia Monument—the very same areas targeted by the GSLC for logging.
• The GSLC has recently been deliberately cutting and killing large swaths of natural giant sequoia regeneration in high-intensity fire patches, throwing the killed sequoia saplings into many hundreds of huge slash piles, and incinerating them with the public funds they have been receiving. In just one grove, Freeman Creek, our team of scientists found the GSLC has already killed 158,000 young sequoia trees.

Take Action: Please call your U.S. Senators now, and often, and urge them to oppose the sham “Save Our Sequoias Act”, S. 4103 (Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121). And please tell them that you are outraged that taxpayer funds are being used to lie to the public, and exploit and destroy beloved giant sequoia groves on public lands.