Large privately owned redwood forest is preserved in $24.7 million deal

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A vast redwood forest located 80 miles north of San Francisco and sprawling nearly as large as Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains has received permanent protection under a deal between a Bay Area environmental group and the property’s longtime owners. Under the agreement, Save the Redwoods League, based in San Francisco, paid $24.7 million to buy a conservation easement over the sweeping Mailliard Ranch, located in southern Mendocino County near the Sonoma County line. The 14,838-acre property, roughly half the size of the city of San Francisco, is believed to be the largest family-owned coast redwood forest remaining in California. The Mailliard family, which has owned it since 1925, includes Charlotte Mailliard Shultz, the wife of former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, who died Feb. 6 at age 100 at their home in Palo Alto. The family will continue to own the property and it will not be open to public access. The easement guarantees conservation in perpetuity, however. The family still will be allowed to conduct commercial logging—at half the rate currently permitted under state laws—on second-growth redwoods there, as it has done for generations. But more than […]

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