Message from the SRT Board President
As President of the Board of Directors for Sequoia Riverlands Trust, I would like to thank you for your interest in and support of our organization. As you know, land trusts play an instrumental role in communities across the globe to protect natural and working landscapes for the enjoyment and livelihood of future generations. Here in the heartland of California’s San Joaquin Valley and southern Sierra Nevada, we feel that our mission is of the utmost of importance not only to our region, but also to the nation as a whole.
Sequoia Riverlands Trust’s mission to protect strategic natural and agricultural lands involves a collaborative process with diverse partners including community members, farmers, private businesses; state, county and local government agencies and other non-profit organizations. We welcome and solicit the advice, expertise and resources of a variety of stakeholders in order to ensure that we are best serving the needs of our community.
Hillsides wake up to the spring
A common misconception of our work is that we are environmentalists who are concerned about protecting lands at the expense of the economic interests of farmers, landowners and developers. That could not be further from the truth. We see our role as one of problem-solvers. We anticipate land use conflicts and offer solutions that are in the best interest of the community at large – whether that is offering mitigation services to developers who must comply with rigorous CEQA standards, or working with farmers who are in need of capital to pay down debt or improve their business operations. We also appreciate our region’s beauty and ecological significance. Our goal is to promote smart land use planning so that our children and grandchildren can enjoy the beauty of our lands as we do.
Sequoia Riverlands Trust works to conserve not just habitat, but also valuable farmland. We work in the most agriculturally productive counties in the nation—Fresno, Tulare, Kern and Kings— which makes our Farmland Conservation program particularly important, and even nationally significant. During the course of my California Agricultural Leadership program in the late 1970s, I spent some time in Sweden observing their agricultural practices and policies. I heard a very compelling story that has motivated me ever since. My Swedish host asked me, “Do you know where our agricultural department is housed within our government? The Department of Defense.” He went on to elucidate the point, “You can’t have a military if you can’t feed your military.” Those words have really inspired me. Our work at Sequoia Riverlands Trust isn’t just about preserving land, it is about national food safety and security.
As you can see, our view of conservation is grand. We are also part of the newly formed Southern Sierra Partnership, along with the Nature Conservancy, Sierra Business Council and the California Audubon Society. We work collaboratively to pool our resources in order to conserve large landscape-scale sections of the southern Sierra Nevada. The goal is to create connectivity between the Sierra and the Coastal Range to allow for the natural migration of plants and animals. We study these migratory patterns in anticipation of potential effects from various climate change scenarios, and then set out to conserve land accordingly. Though blue oaks may not move very fast, coyotes do, so we want to anticipate how climate change may affect such disparate species.
Please contact us at any time to ask us questions about our work or contribute your advice, skills or resources. And, thank you for your interest and support for land conservation in the southern Sierra Nevada and San Joaquin Valley.
Sincerely,
Scott Spear
Board President