The UPS Foundation and EDN have planted more than 3.7 million trees worldwide since 2013. Recently, EDN, the global coordinator of Earth Day events, planted 2,000 coast redwood seedlings in the Usal Redwood Forest in Northern California’s Mendocino County.
The planting is part of a project EDN has with the California Redwood Forest Foundation, a nonprofit that owns and manages the 50,000-acre forest, with the aim of restoring redwoods in the Usal Forest. Redwoods dominated the forest for centuries but have been heavily depleted by 100 years of industrial forestry.
Redwoods can reach heights of more than 350 feet and can have a diameter of 24 feet. Coast redwoods live only in a 40-mile wide strip on the Northern California coast, and have a lifespan of ups to 2,000 years.
Besides restoring these giants to the forest ecosystem, EDN and the Redwood Forest Foundation say the project will help the region address climate change. Although all trees pull carbon dioxide from the air and release oxygen, coast redwoods are the climate change champions, sequestering more carbon per acre than any forest in the world, including the Amazon rainforest.
The redwoods for this project are being planted in protected stream corridors as part of a coho salmon recovery plan approved by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife . Planting in these stream zones helps ensure the trees will grow to maturity without threat of future harvest.
Redwood Forest Foundation president and CEO Mark Welther, who worked as a UPS delivery driver in Eugene, Oregon, for nine years, said the beneficiaries will be the people of California who depend on this forest for clean air and water, carbon sequestration and healthy habitat and species.