Emanuel Fritz; State Forestry’s ‘Mr. Redwood’

Emanuel Fritz, 102, a forestry and conservation authority who was known as “Mr. Redwood.” Fritz helped create California’s forest program and was co-founder of the Regional Parks Assn., the forerunner of the East Bay Regional Park system near San Francisco. He was a professor of forestry emeritus at UC Berkeley, having joined the faculty in 1919 and retired in 1954. Fritz lived the longest of any professor at Berkeley, the university said. Fritz’s contribution to the field of forestry was honored this year by the Redwood Region Logging Conference 50 years after he founded it. He advised elected and appointed officials on the need to balance demands for lumber in a rapidly growing state with the need to preserve old-growth groves, replant logged areas and set aside areas for protection. On Thursday in Berkeley.