Forest Service TERMINATES Stewards of the Sequoia Volunteers

Sadly, Sequoia Kern River District Ranger Al Watson just cancelled Stewards of the Sequoia volunteer trail maintenance agreement of 15 years. Per his termination letter Ranger Watson has no issue with any of Stewards trail work and thanks Stewards for their service, but he feels we are not good partners because Stewards object to the PCT Corridor and question the validity of the 2010 Piute Motor Vehicle Use Map (MVUM). These are freedom of speech issues, totally unrelated to volunteer trail maintenance. Ranger Watson should not be allowed to terminate our volunteer trail maintenance program based on anything other than our trail work. Stewards have not violated any law or regulation, we just do tons of hard trail work. As a Forest partner, Stewards of the Sequoia volunteers have performed so much valuable work to prevent erosion and keep trails enjoyable for everyone including clearing over 10,000 downed trees, maintaining over 5000 water bars and brushing hundreds of miles of trails. Without Stewards work, many trails would be impassable which would harm tourism and concentrate use. The Forest Service is unable to perform this work. The Forest Service needs to renew the partnership to allow Stewards to continue maintaining Sequoia trails...MORE