Greg King (writer)

Greg King (born 1961) is an American journalist and environmental activist in Northern California. He is president and executive director of Siskiyou Land Conservancy, a non-profit land trust.

King is credited with discovering and naming Headwaters Forest, in March, 1987, then the largest privately held ancient redwood grove still standing outside of parks. As a redwood activist, King pioneered the civil disobedience tactic of tree sitting, and he was a lead organizer and strategist dedicated to protecting Headwaters and other groves during the 1980s and 1990s. King is an authority on redwood logging and protection efforts that have occurred since 1850.

King was the principal author of the 2014 book, Rumours of Glory, the memoir of Canadian performing artist Bruce Cockburn.

King's writing has earned four journalism awards, including two Lincoln Steffens Investigative Journalism Awards, and his photographs have run in several national publications. In 2016 the Environmental Protection Information Center presented King with its annual Sempervirens Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2023, PublicAffairs published King's book, The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods, a history of redwood logging and protection efforts.

King was born in Guerneville, California, the fifth generation of his family to live in western Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. King's father, Thomas King, was a banker in Guerneville, and his mother, Jessie Casler King, was a schoolteacher. King's ancestors arrived on the California North Coast in the 1860s and owned the King-Starrett mill in Monte Rio, then one of the largest redwood mills in Sonoma County. The King Range Mountains, in Humboldt County, are named for the family. King's great-great uncle, William King, was owner of the 2,000-acre King Ranch (810 ha), in Cazadero, Sonoma County, and later served as Sonoma County supervisor.

King graduated from University of California, Santa Cruz in 1985 with a degree in politics. That same year, he joined the staff of the West Sonoma County Paper (now called The Bohemian) as a staff reporter and photographer. At the Paper, King covered issues that included redwood logging in Sonoma County by timber giant Louisiana Pacific Corporation. King's redwood articles earned him a 1986 Lincoln Steffens Investigative Journalism Award. At the time, King was also investigating the 1985 takeover of Humboldt County's Pacific Lumber Company by Houston-based Maxxam Corporation. In 1986, Pacific Lumber owned the only large groves of ancient redwoods still standing outside of state and national parks.

In early 1986 Maxxam instituted a new logging regime on Pacific Lumber property that doubled the annual acreage of old-growth redwood to be cut, and changed logging methods from selection to clear-cutting. In July 1986 King and Darryl Cherney co-founded Humboldt County Earth First! as a means of addressing Maxxam's liquidation of the last ancient redwoods. In November 1986 King resigned from his job at the Paper and moved to Humboldt County to focus on halting Maxxam's logging. In March, 1987, on a solo hike through Pacific Lumber's ancient redwood groves, King discovered and named Headwaters Forest, which stood at 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) and at the time was the world's largest unprotected ancient redwood grove.