Our Story
Our story begins in the summer of 2004, when John Pickett was working for the U.S. Forest Service blister rust program as a forestry technician in the Lake Tahoe Basin. That summer, John saw that most of Tahoe’s white pines - including the princely sugar pine, the world’s largest pine - were dying due to a non-native, invasive fungus called white pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola). John knew that losing Tahoe’s white pines would be harmful for the region’s wildlife, water quality and economy; not to mention future generations of nature-lovers and recreationalists. Although blister rust is incurable in infected pines, about 3-5% of sugar pines and western white pines possess a natural genetic resistance to the fungus.
From his work with USFS, John knew how to restore and save these beautiful species through a simple restoration strategy: identify blister rust resistant trees, collect their seeds, and plant their offspring. He created the Sugar Pine Foundation - a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring white pines in the Tahoe region - to augment the USFS’s efforts and funding available to save white pines.
John used the help of volunteers to get the organization going, and that is how he came across another passionate tree lover, Maria Mircheva, in the summer of 2006. Maria is from Bulgaria but was in the process of getting her Masters in Environmental Science at UC Santa Barbara when she met John as a participant in the Tahoe Baikal Institute’s Summer Environmental Exchange program. She dove right into helping with field operations, administration and grant writing for over a year until she took over as Executive Director in 2007.
Over the next few years, Maria hired staff to help grow the organization. Hugh Denno, a Lake Tahoe naturalist and filmmaker and Tressa Gibbard, another Tahoe Baikal Institute alumni, were hired as part-time staff. With Maria at the helm, the Sugar Pine Foundation blossomed into a well-recognized leader in forest restoration, environmental education and replanting fire scars. Since 2008, the Sugar Pine Foundation has held community plantings every spring and fall. Hundreds of local volunteers of all ages help plant over 10,000 trees per year in burn scars and other areas in need of restoration throughout the Tahoe region.
Now with just three permanent staff members and a few seasonal helpers the organization is still small and close-knit. Nevertheless, the Sugar Pine Foundation is always improving its capacity to restore Tahoe’s forests and cultivate a culture of forest stewardship in the region thanks to strong partnerships with the U.S. Forest Service, private and public landowners, local environmental groups, schools, clubs and businesses, and its many volunteers.
White Pine Blister Rust
Our Mission
We are dedicated to restoring sugar pines and other white pines in the Lake Tahoe region and beyond. By educating and involving local volunteers of all ages in hands-on forest stewardship, we are conserving these important native species for future generations to enjoy.