Assistant fire manager Leif Mathiesen looks for an opening in the burned-out sequoias from the Redwood Mountain Grove in the Kings Canyon National Park on November 2021. (Gary Kazanjian/AP/File)
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Give park a chance
to regenerate naturally
Re: “Groups sue to stop planting of sequoias by park service” (Page B1, Dec. 4).
The piece indicates that the National Park Service is “concerned that natural regeneration may not be sufficient to support self-sustaining groves.” The use of the word “may” suggests the fate of the burned sequoia groves isn’t known with enough certainty to justify hastily proceeding with an expensive project that, itself, has no certainty of succeeding and that may have a lot of unintended consequences as regards ecosystem damage to designated wilderness areas.
Chad Hanson, the director of the John Muir Project, one of the groups that filed suit, and others have recently documented that natural sequoia regeneration is, in fact, occurring in many parts of the area in question and maybe other burned patches just need more time. Is this truly a “now or never” situation? Hopefully, the time it takes for the lawsuit to work its way through the courts is sufficient to give nature a fair chance to prove itself.
Jennifer Normoyle
Hillsborough
Harris should follow
column’s advice
Re: “Come home, Kamala Harris, run for California governor” (Page A9, Dec. 3).
I hope readers did not overlook Joe Mathews’ warning in his Sunday column, “Come home, Kamala Harris, and run for governor.” Frankly, it was hard to miss. “As a team, the two of you are headed to a catastrophic election defeat,” Mathews wrote.
I agree. Mathews added, “Two-thirds of Democrats want your boss, Joe Biden, not to run for reelection. But everyone knows Biden, 81, will run anyway.”
The day after the fall of Kabul in Biden’s first year, the event that caused me to lose faith in our new president, POLITICO’s Playbook wrote, “Every biography or deep profile of Biden emphasizes his stubbornness, the chip on his shoulder, his lifelong desire to prove doubters wrong.”
What’s more disconcerting, though, is how the Democrats have aligned behind the incumbent, ignoring the polling, and insisting that “there is no ‘Plan B.’”
Harris would be wise to take Mathews’ advice.
Irvin Dawid
Burlingame