Redwood Seminar - 1966
by Jessica Carver
One of Fred McPherson’s first local activism events occurred while teaching Biology at Pacific High School in 1966. At the time, Fred had begun teaching via “Experiential Learning” as opposed to more conventional methods. This allowed him to educate and expose his students firsthand to issues where they could make their own observations and opinions. Fred led a Redwood Seminar to investigate the rate of logging in the Santa Cruz Mountains; as well as the ecological impacts that came with it. Fred guided students in producing a factual editorial to speak out against and raise awareness of the issues associated with the logging of redwoods. Below is the text from the Pacific Newsletter article Fred wrote about the events.
“During the summer and early fall logging activities in the Santa Cruz mountains were at their buzzing Peak. Students could see at least three or four trucks a day loaded with redwood logs drive past the school. The trucks, the rumor that the Redwood logs were going to Japan, coupled with the devastation that many of us observed firsthand last year of forest in our Pacific Backcountry, prompted the organization of the Redwood seminar. Our goal was to investigate the Redwood logging practices in Our own Regional ecology to determine if there was anything we could do to prevent further destruction of our remaining Redwood forest. There were many ideas about how to proceed in to achieve our objectives. For several weeks we spent time following trucks to find out where the logs were coming from and where they were destined. We camped in the Redwood areas; attended San Mateo County Planning Commission hearings; read materials regarding Redwood ecology; visited lumber Mills; Talk to conservationists, as well as state and local Foresters; and looked up logging permit records. We were very fortunate in receiving much help and information from the Sierra Club. It became very apparent that the ecology problem we were investigating was quite intricate. Involved questions of Economics, politics, ethics, and, ultimately, man's will to survive as one of Nature's creatures. It was with this background and sense of frustration that we decided to gather all the information we had come across into a kind of factual editorial. We took the presumptuous but realistic position that we could speak for all youth "... Leave us our heritage!..." Because we were among the minority of Youth that are in any position to speak out about the issue that pertains to their survival. A copy of our position report is included with this newsletter.” - Fred McPherson
