The Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC), a California state agency focused on supporting and improving the environmental, economic, and social well-being of the Sierra-Cascade, had a busy day Thursday, June 5, as its Board not only approved a $545,000 grant to the 40 Acre Conservation League to preserve 26 additional acres in the Blue Canyon area, but also approved new guidelines for two directed grant programs: Sustainable Recreation, Tourism, and Equitable Outdoor Access; and Wildfire and Forest Resilience.
By approving the new grant guidelines, the SNC will launch a grant cycle that will award no less than $4.1 million for projects that improve or enhance recreational activities and outdoor access, while also launching a new forest-health and wildfire-resilience grant round that will award $10 million to advance Governor Gavin Newsom’s latest executive order to expedite and expand wildfire-safety projects throughout the state.
“The SNC’s role as a state agency is to improve the economic and environmental conditions in the Sierra-Cascade region of California. That has become increasingly more difficult in a warming, changing climate with wildfires becoming more frequent and severe,” said SNC Executive Officer, Angela Avery. “Thanks to our Board’s action at this meeting, we are going to not only conserve more land and improve more opportunities for equitable outdoor access, but we are going to help advance wildfire resilience and help fulfill the governor’s emergency proclamation of fast-tracking critical fuel-reduction projects to greatly improve forest health and community protection.”
The SNC helping to expedite fuels reduction
On April 14, Governor Newsom signed an executive order authorizing $170 million to help fast-track forest-health, prescribe fire, and fuel-reduction projects to advance wildfire resilience statewide. The SNC received just under $31 million of this allotment from the recently passed Climate Bond and with the recent approval of guidelines will make the first $10 million available for projects now. As part of this effort, the governor also signed an emergency proclamation allowing the suspension of certain state statutory and regulatory requirements, such as the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), for certain eligible projects. Lisa Lien Mager, deputy secretary for forest and wildfire resilience at the California Natural Resources Agency, explained to the Board the reasons behind the proclamation and what projects may be eligible.
“The devastating effects on our environment and our communities from wildfires have become all too common across the state over the past few years,” she said, prior to the meeting. “With peak wildfire season on the horizon, the governor issued executive orders that will expedite much-needed, vegetation-management projects, while also putting Climate Bond funds to work as soon as we can to help protect our precious natural resources and communities across the state.”
Grant program expands recreation and tourism
On Thursday, the SNC Board also approved new directed grant program guidelines to implement the Sustainable Recreation, Tourism, and Equitable Outdoor Access grant program. The grant program will be launched in July and allocate no less than $4.1 million of remaining Proposition 68 local-assistance funds. Passed in June of 2018, Proposition 68, which allocated $55 million to the SNC, recognizes the critical importance of recreation and tourism to California’s economy and ecology.
More land conservation in Placer County
Under the Strategic Land Conservation Directed Grant Program, the Board awarded a $545,000 grant to the 40 Acre Conservation League for a fee-title acquisition of 26 acres located in the community of Blue Canyon just west of Emigrant Gap along Interstate 80 in Placer County. The property is adjacent to the 40 Acre Conservation League’s 650-acre Tahoe Forest Gateway property that was acquired in June 2023 with the help of grants from the SNC and the Wildlife Conservation Board. The only Black-led land conservancy in California, the 40 Acre Conservation League plans on restoring forest health, preserving the land, and opening it up to public access in the near future.