Swimming and Sustainability in the World of Paul Asmuth

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Open water swimmers are known for having a passion to sustain and protect the marine environments where they venture beyond the shorelines.

Lewis Pugh, OIG of South Africa, Bruckner Chase in New Jersey, Doug Woodring in Hong Kong, Oleg Dokuchaev in Siberia, and Lady Merle Liivand in Florida are a few of the many swimmers who intertwine their passion for the open water with the concern and care for the marine environment.

But there are other in the open water swimming world who connect their passion for Mother Nature with the dryland environment, as compared to exclusively focusing on the open water International Swimming Hall of Fame (Class of 2010) and the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame (Class of 1982) dual inductee Paul Asmuth (68, USA, MSF bio here) symbolizes those individuals.

While Asmuth has shared much of his time in the open water, competing in 59 professional marathon swims, finishing 3 English Channel crossings in 8 hours 12 minutes, 8 hours 34 minutes, and 9 hours 5 minutes in the 1980s, winning 7 World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation titles during the 1980s, and pioneering crossings (e.g., across Nantucket Sound from Nantucket Island to Craigville Beach, Cape Cod in 1986), Asmuth now focuses on sustainability in Northern California.

He founded The Napa Valley Community Forest, a unique community forest project where he and his team has been created by planting 2,500 coast redwood and oak trees since 2019 to benefit the environment and provide a legacy for the community. “We plant for those who will come after us. Coast redwood forests are carbon vacuums. Our 2,500-tree coast redwood forest is currently estimated to be sequestering on the order of 100 to 125 tones of carbon per year, equivalent to roughly 350 to 450 tons of CO2 annually. Another one of our goals is to reopen a walking and biking path along the Napa River at the edge of the forest to reconnect the community with this natural corridor.”

Giants Arising

Formed in 2019 by Asmuth, his wife Marilyn, and a group of concerned citizens in the Napa Valley, they aim to help protect and preserve the natural landscape, habitats and resources for many generations to come in the manmade woodland located south of St. Helena in northern California along Zinfandel Lane. They created an area with thousands of redwood and native oak trees that act as a shady community space and thriving wildlife habitat from its origins as fallow land near the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

It started as an experimental planting project over 10 years ago and now boasts a lush, cooling canopy where some of the redwood trees have already grown to over 20 meters tall with a thriving ecosystem that has quickly taken root with more than 30 bird species—including hawks, egrets, and owls—that use the trees for nesting and hunting. The budding forest helps clean the air, sequester carbon dioxide, and store water in the local watershed.

The forest is supported by local volunteers, the Napa County Resource Conservation District, and Sustainable St. Helena.

While Asmuth deals with the practical challenges and opportunities in the adult world in bringing The Napa Valley Community Forest live, he also has an eye for the future and future generations of leaders.

His latest book, Theo and Violet Care for a Forever Forest – Lessons in Nature and Community chronicles his actual experiences, together with his two grandchildren, in creating The St Helena Community Forest.