Garcia River Forest Facts

The 23,780-acre Garcia River Forest is in the heart of the Redwood region of California’s North Coast, just 100 miles from San Francisco in Mendocino County. The forest comprises one-third of the watershed of Garcia River and contains a magnificent expanse of redwoods and Douglas firs.
Garcia River is recognized by the California Department of Fish and Game as a high priority for protection and recovery of the state—and federal—listed coho salmon and steelhead trout. The property also supports Northern spotted owl and numerous other rare plants and animals.

The purchase of Garcia River Forest in 2004 established the first large nonprofit-owned working forest in California. Today, we continue to sustainably manage this working forest. The Nature Conservancy scientists, who assisted in developing the forest’s management plan, conduct forest-carbon research and monitor biodiversity conservation on the property.

The redwood forest type that dominates Garcia River is remarkably resilient and productive: Redwood trees sprout from stumps, there are few pests or diseases and the forest can produce lumber that is uniquely beautiful, durable and valuable.

Like most large timbered properties, Garcia River Forest was owned by a succession of timber companies. This history of intensive industrial timber management left a legacy of depleted inventories of merchantable timber, a network of fragile roads on steep slopes of eroding soils and miles of spawning habitat for salmon and steelhead clogged with sediments.

In February 2008, the Garcia River Forest became one of the first forests—and the largest—to receive verification as a source of greenhouse gas reductions under the protocols of the Climate Action Reserve.