Sequoia ForestKeeper
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Sequoia ForestKeeper® - The eyes, ears, and voice of the forest. Sequoia ForestKeeper® acts as the as the eyes, ears, and voice of the forest.
To protect and restore ecosystems of the southern Sierra Nevada – including Sequoia National Forest and the Giant Sequoia National Monument SFK seeks to improve land management practices, to promote land stewardship, to enforce existing laws and regulations, to implement public awareness programs, and to offer assistance to local land management agencies. Mission
The mission of Sequoia ForestKeepe
This is what a sea of greens truly means! All giant sequoias!
This is what making a comeback looks like after fire – no need for replanting.
Just walk, watch, and enjoy.
Footage taken in summer, 2025. Can’t wait to get back to Redwood Mt. Grove…
Resources:
https://lnkd.in/gQ_pP9Jq
https://lnkd.in/gGH4hNE2
03/02/2026
A new film produced by the Our Public Lands Podcast, featuring Sequoia ForestKeeper’s very own Maya Khosla, premieres on Substack this Thursday (03/05) at 5:30 p.m. PST! The premiere will be followed by a Q&A session you won’t want to miss.
Click the link in our bio to register for the event. We hope to see you there!
02/24/2026
When it comes to protecting lives and communities from the effects of urban wildfire events, the conversation is dominated by the supposed need for more “fuels reduction logging.” This solution focuses on logging extensive amounts of forests, most of them far away from population centers, because trees are often seen simply as fuel for wildfires. Fuels reduction efforts tend to dry out forests; they can make future fires faster and even more intense.
There is a common-sense solution that is often overlooked by state and local governments as well as fire agencies. Home-hardening is the simple idea that protecting communities from wildfire starts with the home. If houses in fire-prone areas are not built to withstand heat and contact with flames, we’ve lost from the get-go. Not only the home itself, but the yard and area immediately surrounding the house are extremely important to home wildfire safety. Keeping the first five feet surrounding your home, also known as “Zone Zero”, clear of any combustible materials, including plants, wood decks and awnings, and organic buildup, greatly increases wildfire resistance.
Take the tragic urban firestorm that leveled parts of Los Angeles in 2025, for example. That fire started in the chaparral, not the forest. It wasn’t trees that spread the fire; it was houses. Flames jumped from structure to structure.. However, not every house on a street that experienced a fire burned; some were built with ignition-resistant materials surrounded by cleared spaces, which resisted the flames.
It’s time that the United States government invest in retrofitting existing homes and ensuring that all new buildings are built to resist the effects of wildfire.
Sources:
*Community Wildfire Risk: A structure ignition problem; Jack Cohen, PhD; January 5, 2025
*Factors Associated with Structure Loss in the 2013–2018 California Wildfires; Alexandra D. Syphard & Jon E. Keeley
Frontline Wildfire Defense. 2025. “How These Homes Survived the LA Wildfires | Frontline.” Frontline. September 25, 2025.
Western forests are no strangers to wildfire, and neither are the animals that inhabit these forests. They are well-adapted not only to survive wildfire events, but also to thrive in their aftermath. Here, Dr. Monica Bond discusses the critical importance of post-fire landscapes for native spotted owls.
When forests are logged immediately after a wildfire, a practice known as salvage logging, native plants and animals are prevented from naturally regenerating burned areas as they have for millions of years. Instead, logging operations remove what remains of the forest and replace it with tree plantations. These plantations offer minimal habitat for wildlife and store significantly less carbon than naturally regenerating forests, primarily benefiting timber corporations.
It’s time for the United States to start scaling back post-fire salvage logging and let forests in the Sierra regenerate naturally, as they have for millions of years.
Credits:
🦉Director – Maya Khosla
🦉 Editor – Sunil Kumawat
🦉Camera work – Sanjay Barnela, Maya Khosla
Special thanks to Drs. Derek Lee and Monica Bond for their pioneering work on spotted owls in post-fire forests.
Sources: https://academic.oup.com/condor/article/117/2/228/5153140 ;
https://bioone.org/journals/the-condor/volume-117/issue-2/CONDOR-14-155.1/Occupancy-of-California-Spotted-Owl-sites-following-a-large-fire/10.1650/CONDOR-14-155.1.short
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332233878_We_Refute_the_Conundrum_of_Agenda-Driven_Science_Commentary_on_Peery_et_al_2019
Music – Simon Wester (Beautiful Places), Ester (Intercept)
This fisher is on a mission – you can tell by the quick exit! He surveys the scene for a few seconds, as this log has been a regular haunt for 2 gray foxes for almost a week (we saw them too), and he can certainly smell them. Fishers could catch foxes, even though they are almost the same size… Not to be trifled with, fishers are ferocious, one of California’s rarest carnivores. There are only 3,000-4,000 fishers in the state, and the Sierra Nevada population likely doesn’t exceed 500 individuals!
This remote camera captured a glimpse of the fisher on January 16th, 2026. He’s got a collar on, so it’s likely the experts over in Yosemite know exactly who he is! It’s amazing that these animals find mates when they are constantly on the move. Chances are, he’s searching for one right now!
The biodiversity of forests after wildfire is often a secret - as few people wander into forests that have been intensely burned - assuming it’s in ruins! If left unlogged, those forests make a quick comeback, and the wildlife responds within a few seasons. For that reason, the world is at your feet when you’re out there!
Black-backed, white-headed, and other woodpeckers are the carpenters, building homes for themselves and a host of other animals (that sometimes get aggressive and take over a woodpecker cavity). Even spotted owls will use post-fire forests that have not been subjected to logging. Among the most elusive of forest dwellers, the fisher is a member of the weasel family that includes wolverines, honey badgers, otters, and smaller long-tailed weasels. The fisher’s ancestors made their nimble way into North America several million years ago. As small and ferocious carnivores. They are the hunters - and they are the hunted. Bobcats and mountain lions will catch fishers if they can.
Pick any non-windy day and wander into the groves that recently experienced wildfire - especially during springtime. Remote camera work shows us how much wildlife is out there...Just be watchful when you walk through stands of snags (standing dead trees, the homes of many members of the wild) - as they will eventually fall.
Sources:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378112721010240 - Lewis et al - camera work in post-fire habitats revealed the presence of many mammals including wolves.
https://therevelator.org/logging-northern-spotted-owls/ - Logging to ‘Save’ Northern Spotted Owls From Wildfires Will Not End Well
Research shows that spotted owls can thrive with mixed-severity fire, but logging in owl habitat for fire concerns may accelerate their extinction.
https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/12/10/364
Black-backed woodpeckers were nesting in the burned snag forest, and their preferential selection of burned snag forest was statistically significant.
01/04/2026
In case you haven’t heard, the Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA) has moved out of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and is awaiting a motion to bring the bill to the Senate floor for a full vote.
FOFA has been touted as a much-needed remedy for the increasingly severe wildfire crisis, but its prescription will not help the communities suffering from intense wildfire events. The passage of FOFA would see a relaxation of environmental regulations that would allow large timber corporations to thin vast areas of federally managed forests in the name of wildfire mitigation. This bill is progressing even though studies show forests that are primarily used for logging are 1.5 times more likely to experience wildfire than forests that are managed primarily for conservation.*
This bill is a Trojan horse and a gift to massive logging companies that have donated heavily to this administration.
Please call 202-224-3121 to reach the U.S. Senate switchboard office and ask to be connected with your Senator’s office. Urge them to vote no on FOFA and come out publicly against the bill. If you want some help with your call, click the link in our bio for a ready to use script!
*https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1094726?ut
01/02/2026
Happy New Year from the team at Sequoia Forest Keeper!
We are so grateful for your support throughout 2025, and we are committed to the fight for our forests that lies ahead in 2026. Together, we can make a long-lasting, positive change for the Sequoias.
12/26/2025
Happy Holidays from the Sequoia Forest Keeper team!
We are extremely grateful for your support throughout 2025, which has allowed us to track logging in the Sequoias, advocate for the forest, and bring legal challenges to environmentally harmful logging projects.
We hope you are able to spend time with loved ones this holiday season, and we hope you stick around to follow the fight for the Sequoias throughout 2026.
-The Sequoia Forest Keeper Team
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