Sierra Nevada Alliance Publications

Current Publications:

The directory is to assist anyone interested in contacting non-profit organizations focused on natural resource management and planning. Over the next ten years the Sierra Nevada is facing significant challenges to protecting natural resources from population growth and climate change. There are hundreds of resource management planning processes under way in the Sierra. These processes range from hydropower relicensing that determines how waters are released from dams to general plan updates that determine how private lands will be used in counties of the Sierra. Conservation groups involvement in this planning hold the keys to our future.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce new Sierra Nevada Conservancy board members, staff, and others interested in the Sierra Nevada to the subregions of the Sierra. The Sierra Nevada Conservancy has divided the Sierra Nevada into six subregions. Each subregion shares common needs and opportunities with the other subregions. At the same time, each subregion has unique characteristics, assets, and challenges.

This report chronicles that California now has 5.1 million homes in wildfire-hazard areas, more than any other state.

The South Lake Tahoe Monitoring Project is a volunteer water quality monitoring group. This report is a summary of the data collected in 2008. An attachment in the PDF file includes all 2008 raw data.

Want to know how CEQA works? Or how to get people to show up to an important hearing? Saving Sierra Places: An Activist’s Toolkit for Winning Land Use Campaigns is designed to assist community activists in developing effective campaigns to prevent sprawl and foster smart growth. Whether you are contemplating a new land use campaign or deep in a years-long battle, this toolkit is intended to help you organize the most effective campaign and develop new strategies for achieving your goal. For a complete description or to download individual chapters, Click Here

Poorly planned development has become a chief threat to the region’s waters. But what is good growth, from a watershed perspective? This guide provides local conservation groups, local government and the public useful information about the connection between development and water – water quality, water supplies and the health of the Sierra’s watersheds.

The Sierra Nevada Alliance Sustainable Sierra Land Use Campaign works to ensure county land use plans in Sierra counties adequately protect the areas’ last wildlands, natural resources, and rural communities in the face of population growth and climate change. Our campaign works to strengthen individual conservation efforts to effectively encourage planning commissions and boards of supervisors to adopt smart growth policies as they update their county plans. This fact sheet describes those efforts.

This report showed that of the 24 Sierra Nevada watersheds sampled, three-quarters had stretches that were not swimmable, fishable, drinkable or open for recreation at some point in the last five years. These watersheds are major river systems that include rivers, lakes and streams.

New study showing the Sierra at-risk for development. This study details threats to the Sierra Nevada from sprawling development, including specific information for Sierra counties.

This report summarizes the result of a survey completed by 54 Sierra Nevada Alliance member groups in December 2004. The report includes information on member characteristics and organizational needs.

The goal of our Sierra Watersheds Program is to ensure that Sierra watersheds have active, informed efforts to restore and protect their rivers, lakes and streams thereby protecting critical habitats and restoring watershed health. The Sierra Nevada Alliance watershed program works to build the organizational capacity and technical abilities of watershed efforts to achieve maximum watershed protection and restoration. We do this by providing networking, information, fundraising support, trainings, consultation and inspiration.