Vanishing Redwoods

Streaming video - 2016

Vanishing Redwoods depicts the delicate natural balance required for the growth and survival of redwood forests. Harvey Richards photographed the film in northern California and Oregon with the help of Dr. Rudolph W Becking, who narrates the film. It shows how the logging industry's traditional practice of clear cutting threatens the very survival of redwood trees as a species. The film was made as part of Humboldt County conservationists' efforts to protect the last remaining old growth forests by expanding the Redwood National Park. The Park, established in 1968, expanded in 1994 to combine California's Del Norte Coast, Jedediah Smith, and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Parks (dating from the 1920s), into one park containing ...133,000 acres (540 km2), with 45% of all remaining old growth redwood forests. The 2 million acres of redwood forests that existed in 1850 had been reduced by 90% by the time the park was established. Vanishing Redwoods delves deeply into the impact of clear cutting forestry practices of corporate logging on the natural environment that redwoods trees need to survive. more