Lompico Archives - Sempervirens Fund Wed, 04 Feb 2026 20:05:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 A Stewardship Story: Return to Nature https://sempervirens.org/news/return-to-nature/ Tue, 03 Feb 2026 13:00:17 +0000 https://sempervirens.org/?p=93635 Surviving since nearly the age of the dinosaurs, redwoods are resilient—but only 5% of them have survived the last century and a half. Human impacts have left redwood forests struggling to recover. Together, we are carefully caring for the redwood forests you protect, resetting their natural systems, and helping them return to nature. Take a peek behind the trees at how you have helped the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz mountains–some of the most biodiverse and threatened on Earth–this year.

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A Stewardship Story:

Return to Nature

Surviving since nearly the age of the dinosaurs, redwoods are resilient—resisting bugs, fungus, rot, floods, and even fire. But only 5% of them have survived the last century and a half. Human impacts like clear cut logging, development, and the increasingly extreme weather events of our changing climate have left redwood forests struggling to recover.

Together, we are carefully caring for the redwood forests you protect, resetting their natural systems, and helping them return to nature.

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Caring for our Lands

photo by Orenda Randuch

Resetting Redwoods

A century and a half ago, as California’s economy expanded, settlers and industrialists began moving into the Santa Cruz Mountains and deciding what the redwood forests were for. Imagine seeing for the first time the dense understory of sky-scraping titans shading young redwoods in a diverse community that nourished wildlife and cooled creeks teeming with Coho-salmon. Navigating the untouched forest proved difficult and dangerous, but within the forests’ intricate ecosystem these newcomers also saw the potential to use the forest to grow cities like San Francisco and to establish new businesses, institutions, and more.

In an act of hubris, they forcibly carved roads into hillsides that gave their equipment access to each tree and stream, disrupting what had been thriving for thousands of millennia. Today, giant stumps, evenly-aged forests, and Coho-less creeks are the familiar scars of the once decimated forests. These crossings and structures continue to redirect water and sediment today; a large reason why in many places, protection alone cannot undo that damage. Restoring impacted forests begins by removing infrastructure designed for short-term extraction in mind.

Thanks to you, we steward more than 12,000 acres of protected land that we work to restore to nature for all of us.

A black and white logged hillside behind a wooden mill surrounded by stacks of lumber, railroad tracks, and logging roads, with “Waterman Creek Mill C.T.C.” written in the bottom left, Sempervirens Funds Historic archive

Take a peek behind the trees at how you have helped the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz mountains–some of the most biodiverse and threatened on Earth–return to nature this year.

A Fainter Footprint in the Forest

In 2023, you protected more than 50 acres of redwood forest bordering Castle Rock State Park. This land had long been caught between commercial timber zoning and the steady expansion of a public park. As one of the last undeveloped inholdings within the park boundary, Castle Rock Hollow plays a quiet but important role in reconnecting forest and trail across the landscape, and can help realign the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail.

But tucked amongst its groves were several dilapidated buildings, unsafe for people and wildlife, and silently seeping chemicals and toxins into the soil and water. Thanks to you, these structures and materials were removed in the summer of 2024, ahead of winter rains and winds that could increase their threat to the forest and all who rely on it.

Watch as photographer Ian Bornarth documents the removal of these structures at Castle Rock Hollow and the space is returned to the forest.

Removing Roads Less Traveled

While not all of the forests we protect have unsafe buildings and materials on them, nearly all of them have roads. Many were designed for short-term industrial uses rather than long-term stability on steep terrain. Some continue to provide necessary access to the forest for stewardship, wildlife monitoring, and emergency crews like firefighters. But unmaintained roads can add to the erosion of mountainsides, fragile after the CZU Fire and the extreme winter storms that followed.

With fewer plants to help hold soil in place, dirt roads can wash out, taking away the soil the recovering forest needs, and muddying critical water sources we and wildlife need. With your support, we were able to “rock” crucial access roads—establishing beds of crushed gravel—and decommission unnecessary roads to reduce soil erosion, improve water quality, and give the space back to the forest.

See Orenda Randuch’s photos before and after the removal of an unused road at the Lompico Headwaters you protected in 2006.

Several crew members stand at the edge of an unused road in the redwoods and look down at a sheer drop from its edge into the creek below, by Orenda Randuch
Two large worn and rusty corrugated metal pipes removed from the creek lay on the unused road behind a tractor that unearthed them, by Orenda Randuch
Crew in hard hats inspect soil and gravel from the unused road being moved back into a gentle slope along the creek bed by a tractor, by Orenda Randuch
After the road is removed, water forms a pool near woody debris in the creek that wildlife like coho and steelhead need to spawn, by Orenda Randuch
The road and its sheer eroded edge have been replaced by a gentle embankment down to the creek lined with large woody debris and caged native plants to restore the creek, by Orenda Randuch

Undamming Water and Wildlife

Unmaintained roads are not the only structures that disrupt forest systems. Dams can alter watersheds more completely and for far longer. A defunct dam on San Vicente Redwoods’ Mill Creek trapped sediment behind it for 100 years—creating poor water quality upstream and poor habitat quality downstream. Endangered coho salmon and threatened steelhead trout return from the sea to the forest to spawn the next generation among the pools created by redwood roots.

They depend on loose gravel and cobble to form stable beds for their eggs and to shape pools and riffles that shelter young fish. For nearly a century, that material was trapped behind the Mill Creek dam. Thanks to you, the dam was removed in 2021, and now sediment is able to move downstream again. Within a year, endangered coho salmon fry were documented in the watershed for the first time on record. These young fish will spend several years at sea before returning as adults. We continue to monitor the creek’s recovery through wildlife monitoring and an ongoing environmental DNA sampling project with UCLA and Amah Mutsun Land Trust. In the future, we hope to see the fry observed in Mill Creek complete that cycle and return to spawn, marking the first confirmed generation to do so in more than a century.

Watch as our Stewardship Team return fry to the creek after being counted.

Rooting Out Invasive Species

Infrastructure isn’t the only thing humans brought into the redwoods. As people across the country and globe came to the Santa Cruz mountains, plants and creatures came with them. Invasive plants like French, Scotch, and Italian broom took root in places without pests and pathogens equipped to naturally keep them in check. A single plant, such as old man’s beard (Clematis vitalba), can quickly cover ground in the forest and strangle redwood trees. Invasive plants can be a double-edged sword to the heart of the forest as they go up the canopy. Not only can they grow quickly without natural checks—crowding out the native plants the redwood forest and its creatures rely upon—they are also less fire-resilient—making their big growth a big pile of fuel for a wildfire.

A seemingly harmless sounding species, periwinkle (Vinca major), is particularly difficult to remove because any root left in the soil will regenerate into new plants. Thanks to you, invasive periwinkle and French broom removal projects began in the summer of 2024 in the redwood forest you protected at Lompico Headwaters. In 2025 and beyond, the work has continued as a returning project so native plants can re-establish themselves on the forest floor. Your support allows us to remove invasive plants, their deep roots and copious seeds, so these invaded patches do not become a persistent source of dry, flashy fuel in the hotter, drier years predicted to come.

See our Stewardship Team's photos before and after work to remove a patch of periwinkle from the forest by hand.

A tall patch of invasive periwinkle covers the forest floor at Lompico Headwaters, by Christopher Lopez
After the periwinkle is removed, the native plants can be seen poking through the soil and leaf litter of the forest floor, by Christopher Lopez
Return To Nature Invasive Periwinkle 2 Before Removal Lompico By Christopher Lopez
Following the invasive periwinkle removal project, scattered native plants soak in the much-needed sunshine after being shaded out, by Christopher Lopez

Returning Redwoods to Nature and Resilience

The truth is: redwood forests still bear the scars of a history marked by profoundly destructive human intervention. They have endured axes and bulldozers, but also lingering barriers like dams, buildings, and invasive species. What has changed is how we act now. Stewardship, for us, is the ongoing work of carefully and humbly understanding how to support forests toward what they once were, and what they still have the potential to become.

Protecting our last remaining redwood forests from further development is a crucial first step. By reducing human impacts left on the land, natural systems regain the capacity to respond, adapt, and recover. Together, we will continue to anchor broader efforts to renew watersheds, support resilient forests, and accelerate the collective well-being of ecosystems that redwoods are capable of achieving. With your help, our forests will be resilient and strong, able to support wildlife, clean water, fresh air, cooler temperatures, and healthy communities for generations to come.

Sunlight filters through the forest canopy to illuminate several redwood trees at Lompico Headwaters, by Orenda Randuch

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]]> The End of Rain https://sempervirens.org/news/the-end-of-rain/ Wed, 13 Jul 2022 16:23:21 +0000 https://sempervirens.org/?p=47423 As temperatures soar, droughts become more frequent, and fire seasons lengthen, does it change how we see the land? Scott Ordway, an award-winning composer and multimedia artist, explored those questions and shared his reflections through words, sounds, and images with the hope that art experiences like these can help strengthen connections with nature–the basis for action.

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The End of Rain

Exploring Drought, Fire, and Our Relationship with Land Through Art and Music

As temperatures soar, droughts become more frequent, and fire seasons lengthen, does it change how we see the land? Can these experiences help us bring balance to our relationship with nature before it's too late? Scott Ordway, an award-winning composer, multimedia artist, and Assistant Professor of Composition at Rutgers University, was moved to explore those questions when he heard of the devastation the CZU fire had wrought upon the idyllic forests, meadows, and beaches of his childhood in the Santa Cruz mountains.

We asked Ordway how growing up in the Santa Cruz mountains forged his connection with nature and shapes his art. Through words, sounds, and images he reflects on his changing relationship with land through drought and fire and the hope that experiences like these through art can help strengthen connections with nature–the basis for action.

Launch the Experience

photos by Scott Ordway

The End of Rain

Scott Ordway

Our relationship with nature is a prominent and recurring theme in composer and multimedia artist Scott Ordway's work. Could a pivotal occurrence like the CZU fire—catastrophic fire tearing through a fire resistant coast redwood temperate rainforest— change our view of the land? Ordway crowdsourced input from more than 200 Californians who shared their first-hand experience of wildfire and drought over the past several years. He collected and analyzed the 80,000 words they shared, and extracted a large poetic text which forms the the lyrics for his symphonic composition, the vocals of which will be performed by the Grammy winning ensemble, Roomful of Teeth, and accompanied by projected landscape photography and video that he created while traveling throughout his home state and collecting the texts. The result is the symphonic work “The End of Rain” which premiered at America's oldest festival of new orchestral works, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, on July 29th 2022.

In anticipation of the premiere of “The End of Rain”, Ordway curated an experience of his photography and music to share with you his evolving relationship with land through his experience with the Santa Cruz mountains and his hopes for how art can help nudge us from loving nature to taking action to protect it.

Experiencing The End of Rain and a Changing Connection

by Scott Ordway

Listen

Click play to hear Scott Ordway's Interior No. 3,  "After Us, The Birds Will Sing" with his accompanying words and images for the full experience. Performed by Elly Toyoda (violin) and Scott Ordway (piano).

“I spent the first years of my life in Lompico in the Santa Cruz mountains, so I was born and raised in a very dense, very wet redwood forest.”

End Of Rain DSC02577 By Scott Ordway
End Of Rain DSC00378 Edit By Scott Ordway

That's where I spent the first part of my childhood. We moved to a house at the very edge of the Henry Cowell State Park. At the end of my street for my whole childhood was Henry Cowell. For me, that version of forest remains the archetypal idea of what a forest is supposed to look like. Most of the world's forests don't look anything like those forests. I'm underwhelmed by most other forests. Not tall enough, they're not dense enough. They're not green enough. There are not enough banana slugs.

When you grow up somewhere, you use that as the baseline. When you grow up someplace as remarkable as Santa Cruz, you don't realize it's remarkable when you're 12. The redwoods are a spiritual home, as well as literally my home.

“I've addressed a wide range of topics in my work, but I've spent the most time thinking about our relationship to forests, landscape, and the natural world.”

The many, many hours that I've spent by myself in the redwood forest were formative in developing the skill to listen in a careful and sustained way over long periods of time.

Most of my creative time is spent in silence, listening and waiting. The ability to sustain that focus and to find silence and stillness as a fertile place for ideas comes directly from my experience growing up with access to the outdoors and to remarkable outdoors at that.

End Of Rain DSC00493 Edit By Scott Ordway
End Of Rain DSC03767 By Scott Ordway
End Of Rain DSC02520 By Scott Ordway

It was very painful at first to return to landscapes that I knew well, and landmarks that I knew well and find them either completely gone, blackened, or in some other way damaged. But as the project went on, and as I talked to more and more people, and as I visited at different times of the year over the course of about 18 months, my own emotional relationship to fire evolved as I came to understand better the extent to which fire is a natural and healthy part of the forest ecosystem.

It's a neutral phenomenon from a natural standpoint, it's not good, it's not bad, it's just a thing that happens in forests. Seeing the wildflower growth this season after a fire was a remarkable experience that I'd never witnessed before.

I came to realize the real complexity rests in the relationship between humans and the landscape.

The questions are how people are relating to it and how we're planning developments and how we're planning stewardship of the forests. And how we are acknowledging the fact that fire is part of a healthy forest ecosystem.

It's a different picture than I thought originally, which was purely kind of an emotional reaction to what's initially very shocking.

"It's a pivotal moment for humanity as we reach a point of no return with respect to the human cost of climate change."

End Of Rain DSC02912 By Scott Ordway
End Of Rain DSC03281 By Scott Ordway

It's my belief that where art can intervene in a way which is potent and useful is by creating a different emotional relationship to a topic. I don't delude myself that my work will somehow "raise awareness of climate change." It would be preposterous to think that my work will "raise awareness of wildfire" for anyone in the Santa Cruz County area who has been living through wildfire.

I feel that art has the possibility to create and or strengthen emotional relationships to topics. People are moved to take action when they develop an irrational love for something.

Alarm bells have been sounded in every conceivable way around the need to protect and care for the natural world, both at the local and at the sort of policy level, but people don't take action themselves personally, until they have either a direct stake in things, or the kind of irrational love for something. Part of what art, and specifically music, can do is to create those irrational bonds of love that make people begin to take ownership of and have a stake in a topic or an idea. When you show somebody how beautiful something can be, that beauty has the power to persuade and to deepen connections.

"I want to create emotional and aesthetic connections which then become the basis for action.”

End Of Rain DSC00776 By Scott Ordway

There's a finite list of things that most people will genuinely inconvenience themselves on behalf of.

End Of Rain DSC03065 By Scott Ordway

“It's my hope that more people can develop an irrational love for the natural world—something they love no matter what. Not for a calculated reason. Just the kind of gut level, emotional love that they would do crazy things for.”

—Scott Ordway, composer and multimedia artist, 2022

End Of Rain DSC03323 By Scott Ordway

Join Us

Take action during this pivotal moment to protect nature and help future generations connect to it.

Redwoods Now, For All, Forever.

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Experience The End of Rain

While The End of Rain premiered at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music on July 29, 2022 in Santa Cruz, California, you can experience "The End of Rain" through Scott Ordway's limited edition book with the complete crowdsourced texts of the work together with 97 photographs documenting the shared impact of fire and drought on California landscapes and communities.

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]]> The Jerry Garcia-Sempervirens Fund Connection https://sempervirens.org/news/the-jerry-garcia-sempervirens-fund-connection/ Wed, 02 Aug 2017 07:00:00 +0000 https://sempervirens.org/about/press/jerry-garcia/   Aug. 1, 2017 would have marked the 75th birthday of local legend Jerry Garcia. Here at Sempervirens Fund, we long heard rumors that the Grateful Dead had jammed somewhere on the Lompico Headwaters property back in the day. Sempervirens Fund purchased the Lompico Headwaters property in 2006, saving it from being harvested by timber…

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As a boy, Jerry Garcia lost his finger in the Lompico redwoods.

 

Aug. 1, 2017 would have marked the 75th birthday of local legend Jerry Garcia. Here at Sempervirens Fund, we long heard rumors that the Grateful Dead had jammed somewhere on the Lompico Headwaters property back in the day.

Sempervirens Fund purchased the Lompico Headwaters property in 2006, saving it from being harvested by timber interests. A year later, we transformed the 425 acres of land into the pioneering Lompico Forest Carbon Project.

Although there is no evidence the Grateful Dead ever played Lompico, the truth of the rumor is far stranger.

Garcia’s family owned a house in Lompico. While vacationing in the redwoods in 1951, Garcia’s older brother Clifford accidentally lopped his 4-year-old brother’s right-middle finger off at the knuckle while chopping wood.

Even more macabre is the fact that the finger of the boy who would grow up to find international fame as a psychedelic icon and Hall of Fame guitarist…was never found.

That’s right. Jerry Garcia’s finger is still wandering around out there in the redwoods somewhere.

Happy Birthday to a Santa Cruz Mountain legend.

To learn more about Sempervirens Fund’s pioneering forest carbon project in Lompico, click here.

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