Presentation: The Ghost Forest: What Really Happened to the 96% of the Redwood Biome That Was Logged?
September 17 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Presentation: The Ghost Forest: What Really Happened to the 96% of the Redwood Biome
That Was Logged?
Speaker: Greg King
Location: In-person presentation at the Siskiyou Chapter meeting at Southern Oregon University Science Building, Room 161. Join us in-person or Zoom in from home. To register for Zoom, go tohttps://bit.ly/npsotalks.
Journalist and activist Greg King provides an authoritative history of redwood logging and protection efforts, from the 1850s through the end of the twentieth century. The presentation is based on research conducted over decades and published in King’s 2023 book, The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods. It is also the story of King’s own activism, as he co-founded the movement during the 1980s to prevent the junk-bond liquidation of the very last ancient redwood groves still standing outside of parks. The book has been widely praised, including by authors Charles Frazier and Richard Preston. The Atlantic magazine called The Ghost Forest, “Groundbreaking … an epic tale of corruption and deception, perpetrated on a mass scale for nearly a century.” For more see: https://gregkingwriter.com/the-ghost-forest
Greg King is an award-winning journalist and activist credited with spearheading the movement to protect Headwaters Forest in Humboldt County, California. King initiated the “redwood wars” following the notorious 1985 takeover of the venerable Pacific Lumber Company by the Houston energy and real estate conglomerate Maxxam, and he identified and named Headwaters Forest in 1987. Greg King is a fifth-generation native of California’s redwood country. His nineteenth-century ancestors arrived in Sonoma County in 1873 and later owned one of the largest redwood mills on the Russian River.
King’s articles and photographs have appeared in The Sun, Sierra, Smithsonian, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, the Portland Oregonian, the Sacramento Bee, Mother Jones and other publications. In 2016 the Environmental Protection Information Center presented King with its annual Sempervirens Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2023 PublicAffairs Books published King’s book, The Ghost Forest, the definitive history of redwood logging and protection efforts. King lives in Humboldt County, where he serves as President and Executive Director of Siskiyou Land Conservancy.
