153 acres of redwood forest near Big Basin preserved

“The Gateway to Big Basin is forever preserved and we have the community to thank. We had less than three weeks to raise the funding [to] purchase and permanently preserve the Gateway to Big Basin and the community stepped up and made this happen,” Sara Barth, Sempervirens Fund’s executive director, said in a press release. “For decades, this property has been prized for its conservation potential both for its outstanding redwood forests and its proximity to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. We are overjoyed to finally have protected these beautiful redwoods.”

The $2.86 million Campaign to Preserve the Gateway to Big Basin funded the purchase price of $2,415,000 and includes $346,500 for stewardship programs to improve the health and resilience of the forest habitats on the property. The campaign’s first donor, the Lipman Family Foundation, made a $500,000 gift in late 2021. Thanks to 1,133 generous donors, more than $223,489 was raised, and $200,000 was matched by anonymous donors, during the January campaign. Brian Krawez and the team and clients at Scharf Investments also made more than $100,000 in donations in the waning weeks of the campaign.

Sempervirens has been pursuing the property for decades, making multiple offers with prior landowners but never completing a deal. The organization values it for its environmental uniqueness and proximity to Big Basin, as it straddles Highway 236 and is contiguous with the current park boundary. Called Gateway property, it is forested from three ridges down into creeks, waterfalls and canyons, forming a small basin. A source of cars and other debris years ago, ownership cleaned it up in recent years, with soil conditions improved and largely free of remnant debris.

Its environmental and conservation value has increased because it can improve forest resilience and habitat restoration programs in the area. The gateway helps protect endangered fish species at Boulder Creek Watershed and the San Lorenzo River and has wildlife like mountain lions and gray foxes. It has healthy redwoods, Douglas firs and oaks of critical importance. Douglas firs survived the wildfire on the gateway property, making them seed bank candidates for regrowth in Big Basin, which lost most of its firs in the CZU wildfire in 2020.