Last updated: February 28, 2024
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Preserving a "Big Tree"
By providing a voice for environmental consciousness, their efforts empowered policy-makers and ordinary people alike. On a policy level, this led to legal and regulatory mechanisms that were established to guide in the protection of natural resources. By publishing articles and sharing his views, Muir introduced a radically new concept of land use that pushed the ideas of conservation into the values of preservation.[1] His work called for action on all scales, laying the foundation for the modern environmental movement.
Barring accidents, it seems to be immortal. It is a curious fact that all the very old sequoias had lost their heads by lightning strokes. ‘All things come to him who waits.’ But of all living things, sequoia is perhaps the only one able to wait long enough to make sure of being struck by lightning.[4]
Thousands of years it stands ready and waiting, offering its head to every passing cloud as if inviting its fate, praying for heaven's fire as a blessing; and when at last the old head is off, another of the same shape immediately begins to grow on. Every bud and branch seems excited, like bees that have lost their queen, and tries hard to repair the damage.[5]
So far as I am able to see at present only fire and the ax threaten the existence of these noblest of God's trees. In Nature's keeping they are safe, but through the agency of man destruction is making rapid progress, while in the work of protection only a good beginning has been made.[6]
![Stentzel with crated tree A man in a hat and long coat stands to the right of a wooden crate at the end of a driveway, with orchards and rolling hills in the background](/subjects/culturallandscapes/images/Stentzel-with-crated-tree.png)
NPS (John Muir National Historic Site)
While the ancient ancestors of giant sequoia once existed throughout the northern hemisphere, changes in climate conditions restricted their range to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains.[8] Muir confirmed this in his writings, noting that he had never observed a single straggler further than a mile outside of the scattered groves.[9] Over 2,000 feet below and 150 miles away from its natural habitat, Muir’s transplanted tree flourished for year following his death in 1914.
NPS (John Muir National Historic Site / Keith Park)
In 2010, it was determined that the tree had developed cankers caused by the fungus Botryosphaeria dothidea, which contributes to the death of healthy tissue in trees. While most healthy trees can keep the fungus from turning into an infection, trees that are weakened by environmental stress or disturbed site conditions are likely to present conditions ripe for infection. The NPS immediately began managing the impacts by minimizing pedestrian access around the tree, aerating the soil above the roots, and adding mulch around the base to retain moisture. But it became clear that the tree had likely been battling the infection for many years.
NPS
In the words of John Muir:
Notwithstanding, I feel confident that if every sequoia in the Range were to die today, numerous monuments of their existence would remain, of so imperishable a nature as to be available for the student more than ten thousand years hence.
…
Again, admitting that upon those areas supposed to have been once covered with sequoia forests, every tree may have fallen, and every trunk may have been burned or buried, leaving not a remnant, many of the ditches made by the fall of the ponderous trunks, and the bowls made by their upturning roots, would remain patent for thousands of years after the last vestige of the trunks that made them had vanished. [10]
Cultural Landscape Profile
John Muir National Historic SiteNotes
[1] Conservation versus Preservation? (U.S. Forest Service Feature, 2016).[2] Today in History - April 22 (Library of Congress).
[3] H. Thomas Harvey, "Evolution and History of Giant Sequoia," (Proceedings of the Workshop on Management of Giant Sequoia, Reedley, CA, May 24-25,1985).
[4] 7. John Muir, "The Big Trees," in The Yosemite (New York: The Century Co., 1912).
[5] 9. John Muir, "The Sequoia and General Grant National Parks" in Our National Parks (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1901).
[6] 7. John Muir, "The Big Trees," in The Yosemite (New York: The Century Co., 1912).
[7] National Park Service, John Muir National Historic Site Cultural Landscape Inventory, 2004.
[8] H. Thomas Harvey, "Evolution and History of Giant Sequoia."
[9] 7. John Muir, "The Big Trees," in The Yosemite (New York: The Century Co., 1912).
[10] 7. John Muir, "The Big Trees," in The Yosemite (New York: The Century Co., 1912).