It's not just tree removal, says Sam Herzberg, an environmental resource planner in San Mateo County, but also the paths that bring them out that are responsible for choked watersheds, a threatened coho salmon and steelhead population and ground destabilization that endangers homes and lives. Prized as a source of durable and beautiful building material, the huge, ancient redwoods were virtually decimated in this county. Herzberg also knows the history of logging in these Santa Cruz Mountains. The first followed the 1906 earthquake. Oxen pulled the logs down makeshift trails to the creek or railroad bridges.
Historical photos show barren mountainsides stubbled with a five-o'clock shadow of stumps.
Herzberg believes that the most damage was done when the post-WWII building boom required massive amounts of timber for the suburban housing explosion. Giant earth-moving equipment carved huge gashes 50 or 60 feet wide through the mountains. But what those earlier folks didn't know is that their method of road construction was about as natural and friendly to the environment as their chain saws were to the redwoods. Part of the problem lies in the soil found in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Naturally erosive, it provides a perfect medium for landslides.