The Tallest Living Thing Doesn't Play Basketball

One of the big conservation victories back in the '70s was the 48,000-acre expansion of Redwood National Park. The fight dragged on for years, with the tinber industry bitterly opposing expansion. The land to be added was unusual in that 3/4 of it had already been clear-cut; opponents argued that this made it unworthy of National Park status, while proponents made the point that its preservation (or rather, restoration) was essential to the health of the remaining old-growth redwoods.

Thanks to the efforts of the great Phil Burton and President Carter, the area was finally made part of Redwood National Park in 1978.

This history is worth noting now, because forest researchers just discovered what appears to be the tallest living thing in the world: Hyperion, a 378-foot coast redwood, 8 feet taller than the former record-holder (Stratosphere Giant, in Humboldt Redwoods State Park).

And guess what:

George Koch, a biology professor at Northern Arizona University who specializes in plant ecophysiology, called the find incredibly exciting.

"With so much of the old-growth redwoods gone -- more than 90 percent -- you wouldn't necessarily expect a discovery like this," he said.

The find is all the more remarkable, Koch said, because the trees are in a tract added to the park belatedly, during President Jimmy Carter's administration.

"They aren't all that far from an old clear-cut," he said. "Basically, they were almost nuked. The fact that they weren't is amazing." [emphasis added]

If that land hadn't been added to the park, the tallest living thing in the world would have been cut down. The people fighting to preserve those trees didn't know that at the time...but in retrospect, it adds just a little bit more vindication to their efforts.

A coalition of environmental groups has done an inventory of remaining unprotected wilderness in California--7 million acres of it--and are fighting an uphill battle (given anti-environmental Republicans in Congress) to get as much of it preserved as possible. We know there's a tremendous wealth of biological diversity in these areas--but the reality is, there are treasures out there that are yet to be discovered.

And when we consider whether to protect these last remaining wild areas, we should consider the Hyperion tree.

[That's all, folks]