• Dedicated to Saving Tahoe’s Sugar Pines.

    Volunteer at one of our plantings or donate to help sustain our work today:

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    Keep up with our work and learn more:

215,000+ trees planted

3,600+ acres restored

14,000+ Volunteers

215,000+ trees planted 3,600+ acres restored 14,000+ Volunteers

Sugar pines are the world’s largest species of pine and have the longest cones.

Once comprising 25% of Lake Tahoe’s forests, they are dying from white pine blister rust, a non-native, invasive fungus.

Sugar pines now make up less than 5% of our forests.

We find trees that can resist the fungus, collect their cones, and plant their seedlings.

How we help Tahoe’s forests

  • Blister rust resistant tree identification and planting

    We find trees resistant to the blister rust fungus and plant them in our forests, building a generation of resilient white pines.

  • Burn scar restoration

    After a fire, we help encourage healthy diversity of trees by replanting within burn scars in the Tahoe area.

  • Educational Hikes

    We lead hiking and snowshoeing trips through Tahoe’s forests to educate the public about the natural beauty and value of our forests.

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Sugar Pine Blog

Indigenous Land Acknowledgement

The Sugar Pine Foundation is honored to help steward the ancestral homelands of the Washoe and Nisenan people.

These tribes still actively care for the forests, waters and natural resources of the greater Lake Tahoe region to this day. We are grateful to partner with our Washoe friends on many events.

Learn more about the Washoe Tribe of NV and CA and the Nisenan people.

  • Our Washoe friends: Carmelle and Meadow Smokey watering with their Uncle Marty Meeden in the Emerald Fire burn scar.

  • Meadow Smokey at our Caldor Fire planting at Thunder Mountain.

  • Carmelle Smokey getting ready to plant trees at Meeks Bay.