At its September quarterly meeting, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) Governing Board awarded $250,000 to California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project (CHIRP), Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe to reduce hazardous fuels outside the town of Nevada City through cultural-burning practices.
“This project will provide an opportunity for our tribal members to practice Nisenan traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and connect knowledge and lifeways across generations. It will also help us build CHIRP’s internal capacity needs in regard to land stewardship for the tribe in 2025,” said Shelly Covert, spokesperson with the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe and executive director of CHIRP. “The landscape is riddled with the negative impacts from hard rock gold mining, and this is an opportunity to remediate the landscape using a tribal lens.”
RFFCP grant to Nisenan tribe reduces wildfire risk, supports tribal workforce
The SNC is the Sierra-Cascade grantee for the Department of Conservation’s Regional Forest and Fire Capacity Program, which looks to create fire-adapted communities and landscapes across the state. As part of the allocation of funds from this vital state program, the SNC Board awarded $250,000 to the California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project, Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe for cultural burning and demonstration of traditional ecological knowledge forest management practices within e Deer Creek Tribute Trail Extension and Nisenan Cultural Reclamation Corridor Enhancement Project.
Cultural burning and fuel-reduction activities will significantly reduce the risk of damaging wildfire on tribal land located on the western edge of downtown Nevada City. The project site is also within Deer Creek Canyon, a steep and heavily vegetated drainage that is the source of significant wildfire risk to the town of Nevada City. The funding will support partnership development, training, planning, permitting, and implementation of a cultural burn, along with replanting culturally and ecologically important plants in the restored landscape.
A vital element of the project is the opportunity for hands-on-learning and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) transfer to fellow Nisenan tribal members through the design and completion of these cultural burn treatments.
“Lending our support to the Nevada City Nisenan’s cultural-burning efforts makes me proud to serve the Sierra Nevada Conservancy,” said Angela Avery, executive officer of the California state agency. “With this one grant, we are not only reducing wildfire risk to Nevada City, but we are also helping to restore the Nevada City Nisenan as stewards of lands they have tended since time immemorial. It’s an investment that aligns perfectly with our mission to support the environmental, economic, and social health of the Sierra-Cascade.”