Aldaron Laird is well-known as a local sea level rise expert and environmental consultant, but his career began long before rising seas became a concern. I first began working with him on the Humboldt Bay King Tides Initiative in 2011, when he suggested that it would be a good way to turn the public’s attention to the bay during the annual extreme high tides that will soon be the norm.
An avid kayaker, hiker, and photographer, Laird is also known for his extensive knowledge of historical ecology and the complex regulatory framework that governs environmental protection and restoration. He is a long-time proponent of the Public Trust Doctrine, the ancient law adopted by California in 1850 that declared that no one can own the seashore, the air, the oceans, or navigable waterways—these public trust resources belong to all of us.
Laird began his environmental career as a tree planter after graduating from Humboldt State University in 1978. He was a founding member of the Northcoast Reinhabitation Group, a natural resources/forestry contracting and consulting firm based in Blue Lake. Among the Group’s work was some of the first watershed restoration projects in the Redwood Creek expansion area of Redwood National Park in the late 1970s. They also planted millions of trees in Humboldt and Trinity Counties to reverse the damage done by clearcutting, logging roads, and landslides.
