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In 2013, redwood (Sequoia sempervirens (D.Don) Endl.) was listed as endangered under the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. While this listing has no political or legal consequences for the management of redwood, it could have economic consequences as land and mill owners of the redwood region have sought to link redwood to sustainable practices in the marketplace. This paper argues that the listing of redwood, however, is fundamentally flawed by the metrics of the Red List, and that the listing misses the chief conservation challenges related to redwood, which center on ecosystem functionality, not continued existence of individuals in the wild. The IUCN, which maintains the most globally comprehensive list of threatened species, and which seeks to influence conservation actions, could address this flawed listing by creating multiple lists, including a "threatened ecosystem" list. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

California's cap-and-trade carbon market has included forest offset projects, available to all private landowners across the United States. The redwood region has been at the forefront of the market, creating the earliest forest carbon projects. From carbon registries, we compiled a database of all forest carbon projects in the market, in order to determine where projects were located, what types of landowners (e.g. industrial, non-industrial, tribal, timber investment management organizations [TIMO]) were participating, and how projects were being developed. Notably, non-industrial private forest landowners or "family" forest landowners were underrepresented within the market relative to their landholdings. We conducted a survey of family forest landowners in several forested regions across California, in order to determine landowner management objectives and willingness to participate in the carbon market, including obstacles and incentives for participation, and how carbon markets coexist with management objectives. We found that, though many of the carbon market objectives align well with family forest landowner objectives, the burdens of entering the market discourage participation. Further, using cluster analysis, we grouped family forest owners in California according to three management objective types, which we labeled Amenity, Legacy, and Income groups. These three groups had different views of the carbon market and climate change. If family forest owners are to be included in this or other carbonsequestration incentive programs, the management motivations and constraints of distinct landowner types need to be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compiled data from federal, state, and private academic databases to characterize the changing socioeconomics of the redwood region, which is part of the broader geography of the American West. The American West has turned economically away from commodity markets such as timber toward an economy dependent on knowledge and innovation, with job growth in service industries. We illustrate this shift by first comparing two distinct areas of the redwood region, the non-metropolitan northern counties (Del Norte, Mendocino, and Humboldt) and the metropolitan southern counties (Sonoma, San Mateo, and Santa Cruz), on variables including employment, income, and education. These two areas display dramatically different levels of financial and human capital, and represent two very different aspects of the American West. One illustrative distinction is that the northern counties have maintained a forest products industry, while the southern counties have turned almost entirely to other sectors. We then profile the role of the forest products sector within the regional economy, and how it has changed in terms of markets, wood sourcing, and infrastructure. We include trend data for mill capacity, wood prices, and export markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]