Council Supports Sierra Nevada Network to Utilize Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP)

The California Biodiversity Council has voted its support for a Sierra Nevada Network to distribute scientific information from the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP) report that will help communities deal with environmental, social, and economic problems threatening the mountain range.

Council Chair Doug Wheeler, left, talks with Plumas County Supervisor Robert Meacher, right, and Modoc County supervisor Nancy Huffman, center, during a break at the Council meeting.
The University of California will operate the Network to communicate scientific information from the SNEP report and gather local feedback to help guide researchers. It is intended to promote public interest, knowledge, and participation in confronting Sierra issues.

"The network will broaden and connect the Sierra community," former University of California Chancellor Theodore Hullar told the Council at its winter meeting in Davis in December.

"The activities and work of this organization will be out where the people are, listening and learning of their needs as they express them, not as we think they might be," said Hullar, a UC Davis professor of environmental toxicology and executive director of the Sierra Nevada Network.

Currently, there exists no organization to focus on cooperatively developing objective research and education programs to tackle Sierra problems.

"A Sierra Nevada Network would fill a void by serving as a facilitator in assembling balanced and credible information from a variety of research sources and making it publicly available," Secretary for Resources Doug Wheeler, chair of the California Biodiversity Council, said. "The network would assist decision-makers and stakeholders in obtaining and applying the wealth of information contained in the SNEP report and many other sources of scientific research."

Ted Hullar of UC Davis, left, says the Sierra Nevada Network will be "out where the people are, listening and learning." At right is Nita Vail of the California Department of Food and Agriculture
The SNEP, a 3-year study ordered by Congress and completed last year, was the most comprehensive undertaking of its kind in California and perhaps the nation. The project studied the climate, timber, plants, wildlife, fire, water, air quality, human population, and communities of the Sierra Bioregion. It did not prescribe specific solutions, but offered strategy options for improving the ecological health and sustainability.

The concept of a Sierra Nevada Network that would coordinate and provide scientific research information for local use grew out of the Sierra Summit, a gathering of local, state, federal, and private-sector participants, which defined the problems and needs of the mountain range and set goals for environmental and economic improvements. Wheeler chaired the 1991 event.

After release of the SNEP report, it was apparent that Sierra communities needed a way to put its voluminous findings to good use.

"The idea is not to have the SNEP report just sit on a shelf," said Nancy Huffman, a Modoc County supervisor who represents the Northern California Counties Supervisors Association on the California Biodiversity Council.

To apply SNEP findings, the University of California proposed creating a Sierra Nevada Network that would develop and coordinate the delivery and use of scientific research and balanced, credible information. In providing its support for a Sierra network, the California Biodiversity Council recognized that it cannot operate without community involvement.

Governor Pete Wilson provided $125,000 in the Resources Agency fiscal 1996-97 budget to help local communities benefit from the SNEP findings. The funding will assist the Rural Counties (RCRC), an organization of local governments in the Sierra and adjoining regions.

Public Forums
To broaden and deepen communication in the Sierra, regular public forums have been proposed that would enable stakeholders to share ideas for ways to meet the region's needs.

The network could serve as a catalyst in developing new research to address problems raised in the forums. Network participants would work with Sierra organizations such as resource conservation districts, University of California Cooperative Extension, community colleges and state universities, the California Resources Agency, Interior Department, Agriculture Department, Quincy Library Group, Sierra Business Council, and Sierra Alliance.

Reinvesting in the Sierra
Sierra counties carry out resource management policies and make land-use decisions for their communities, but some of the most pressing problems cannot be entirely corrected locally.

The SNEP report raised the issue of a need for beneficiaries of Sierra resources to reinvest in the watersheds of the mountain range. Much of California relies on the Sierra for its water supply but does not pay for environmental work required to maintain high quality rivers and streams.

Measures to restore stream-flow patterns, reestablish native species, and relocate roads and campgrounds that contribute to erosion may be too costly to be borne solely by the Sierra Bioregion.

Plumas County Supervisor Robert Meacher told the Council that local governments, which implement policies that affect Sierra resources, need support from many other sources, including urban areas outside the region.

"We realize that the rural counties cannot do this alone," said Meacher, the Council's representative on the RCRC.

The RCRC supports a reinvestment strategy for the Sierra that would have users of the resources help provide for restoration and improvement to safeguard and sustain the watershed.

An RCRC analysis of the SNEP report said: "Ultimately, it will be the urban areas from Bakersfield to San Diego to San Francisco that will have to support solutions to the Sierra's problems."

Far-reaching Influence
Just as the bountiful Sierra provides water, timber, recreation, and other resources to distant regions of California, its environmental and economic health are affected in turn by conditions from afar.

Air pollution from the Central Valley and urban centers of Southern California drifts into the mountains and damages forests, particularly on the western slope of the range. Addressing this problem adequately will require the involvement of people who live far from the Sierra.

Reducing air pollution, managing fire, and attracting reinvestment in the watershed that supplies two-thirds of California's drinking water are challenges that reach far beyond the Sierra and must be dealt with on a much broader scale.

Read it again at http://ceres.ca.gov/biodiv/newsletter/v4n3/