Regrowing Our Forests

Image

In California, wildfires have left nearly 1.5 million acres of land in need of reforestation, including nearly 1 million acres of national forests. To put that in perspective, with the state’s current seedling production — 28 million seedlings per year — it will take 14 years to grow enough trees to bring a forest back to these acres.

The Forest Service is working with partners to both reduce the risks of high-severity wildfires that create the need for reforestation and to increase post-fire restoration through the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force, Shared Stewardship and other efforts.

In Gazelle, California, additional help is germinating to meet the statewide need for reforestation. Within this rural community northeast of Mount Shasta, Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) broke ground for a conifer seedling nursery. When fully operation, it will be capable of producing 25 million seedings — nearly doubling the current seedling production for the state.

Image

“We've had a lot of problems with wildfire and forest health issues in California. And as a result, we do not have enough seedling capacity to meet the reforestation and restoration needs,” said Andrea Howell, corporate affairs director for SPI. “This nursery is going to help meet those needs.”

The additional nursery space will be positioned to provide conifer seedlings to forest managers – SPI, industrial and family forest owners, and agencies like the U.S. Forest Service – for their wildfire recovery efforts. The seedlings also support continued forest management in California.

With funding from a CAL FIRE Business and Workforce Development Grant, the first phase of development will enable 6 million native conifer seedlings to be grown in 2024, with future phases expected to quickly follow for eventual annual production of 25 million seedlings.  Key species will include those most needed for the burned landscapes of California: Douglas-fir and ponderosa pine, along with other native conifers such as sugar pine, white fir, red fir, and incense cedar.

Image

In addition to the 80-acre seed orchard already onsite, the SPI nursery will have 20 greenhouses and a seed processing facility. The seedling production and distribution will provide jobs to as many as 110 seasonal workers and 10 full-time employees.

“There's not a lot of opportunities to build a nursery like this from the beginning. To see this from 0 to 25 million is really exciting,” said Jessica Hinojosa, tree improvement manager with SPI.

Gary Church, acting Deputy Regional Forester with the Pacific Southwest Region, celebrated this important step toward increasing the pace and scale of reforestation at the groundbreaking ceremony, held at the end of April.

 “While the Forest Service is increasing nursery capacity to meet National Forest System needs for post-fire recovery and species restoration, we look forward to the opportunity to work with SPI to meet needs that exceed our nursery capacity,” said Church. “Partners are critical to meeting the state’s reforestation needs.”

Image