Sometimes, Sempervirens Fund uses some very creative strategies to expand parklands in the Santa Cruz Mountains. At the Sempervirens Preserve, programs of environmental education are being provided on a site that will someday become part of Big Basin Redwood State Park.
December 6, 2007 update: Sempervirens is pleased to announce the transfer of our Preserve property to Big Basin State Park. With this conveyance, Exploring New Horizons will continue their great environmental education programs under the State’s ownership. Changes for the property’s long term use will be presented by State Parks, once they’ve obtained public input and completed their General Plan for Big Basin State Park. MORE
This story began in 1999 when Sempervirens Fund purchased a 17-acre property in the Santa Cruz Mountains, complete with the crumbling remnants of a former motel. It was not a pristine redwood parcel. Yet the property had great strategic significance. It fell within the watershed boundary of Big Basin Redwood State Park. It fronted Highway 236. And the State Parks Department, with no land acquisition funding of their own, desperately wanted to integrate the property into the Big Basin park and to preclude its future commercial exploitation.

Under Sempervirens Fund's ownership, the property was renamed Sempervirens Preserve. And Sempervirens Fund committed to preserving the property until it could be transferred to the State of California as a permanent part of Big Basin Redwood State Park.

In February of 2001, Sempervirens Fund agreed to lease the Preserve to Exploring New Horizons (ENH), a non-profit organization providing environmental education to middle school children in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. By summer of 2001, ENH had opened the Sempervirens Outdoor School, offering its students an experiential approach to science education, self-discovery and environmental stewardship. At the Sempervirens Outdoor School, students engage in hands-on projects in sustainable agriculture and alternative energy. Nearby they can hike in Big Basin parklands and wilderness areas, and explore Monterey Bay habitats at Natural Bridges State Beach.

Proceeds from the Sempervirens Outdoor School lease help Sempervirens Fund cover the cost of holding the Sempervirens Preserve property pending transfer to State ownership.

For insights into still other creative ways that Sempervirens Fund works to save redwood land, click on Creative Conservation.