Sempervirens Fund, originally established in 1900 as Sempervirens Club, is California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

's oldest land conservation

Conservation movement

The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....

 organization. Founder Andrew P. Hill

Andrew P. Hill

Andrew Putnam Hill was an early Californian painter and photographer best known for successfully leading an effort from 1899 to 1902 to save a forest of large redwoods in Big Basin, California and as a result, creating the California State Park System.-Big Basin:The trees, Sequoia Sempervirens,...

's goal was to preserve the old-growth forest that became Big Basin Redwoods State Park

Big Basin Redwoods State Park

Big Basin Redwoods State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of California, located in Santa Cruz County, about northwest of Santa Cruz. The park contains almost all of the Waddell Creek watershed, which was formed by the seismic uplift of its rim, and the erosion of its center by the many...

, the first California state park in 1902. Dedicated to preserving the forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

 ecology

Ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

 of the majestic coast redwoods, Sequoia sempervirens, all of the Fund's resources are focused on a single "bio-region"; the Santa Cruz Mountains

Santa Cruz Mountains

The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central California, United States. They form a ridge along the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco, separating the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco Bay and the Santa Clara Valley, and continuing south,...

, immediately adjacent to the San Francisco Bay Area

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

population centers.

The Sempervirens Fund strategy is to buy up land and then transfer it to state or local parks departments to create parks or expand existing parks and ensure permanent public access. The group has also worked to establish conservation easements and trail linkages between parks and coastal marine preserves. They have saved more than 24,000 acres (85 km²) in the creation and expansion of redwood parklands.