FAQ

The Sierra Cascade region is known throughout the world for its natural wonders—including majestic groves of giant sequoias, dramatic glaciated landscapes, golden oak-studded foothills, high desert vistas, and even volcanoes. It stretches from the Oregon border to the Tehachapis, and from the rugged eastern Sierra to the golden foothills above California’s Central Valley.

The Sierra Cascade Land Trust Council (SCLTC) is a broad coalition of private local and regional land trust and conservancy organizations. We work with landowners to promote and preserve natural, cultural and recreational resources, open space, and working landscapes throughout the Sierra Nevada and California Cascade region. We also assist member land trusts and conservancies, providing educational and technical resources to help them achieve their goals.

By working with landowners who wish to conserve the natural values of their land into the future, our member groups offer a market-based, pragmatic approach to responsible stewardship and sustainable economic activity in their communities. We work to energize, enable, and inspire our members to accomplish these goals:

• partner with willing landowners in local communities to protect and steward important natural, cultural, recreational, and family farm, timber and ranch lands critical to the future well-being of our region, its citizens and visitors
• build members’ individual capacities to ensure effective, sustained conservation work in the region
• communicate, cooperate and coordinate with other member groups, and with the Council and its many partners
• come together on issues of regional importance to provide a unified voice with elected and appointed officials, decision-makers and funders

In addition, the Sierra Cascade Land Trust Council provides opportunities for land trusts and conservancies in the region to learn from each other and from outside experts, influence decisions in the region through positive involvement, and foster local conservation leadership in our communities. We value open and honest collaboration with all interests and are committed to finding effective, win-win solutions to the growth and conservation needs facing our Sierra Cascade communities.

Sierra Cascade Land Trust Council members share the common goal of protecting ranches, forest land and areas of vital wildlife habitat within dozens of critical watersheds across the Sierra Nevada and Cascades. Member groups often work in partnership on projects, and have succeeded in protecting thousands of key properties over the years through conservation easements or purchase. The very nature of this work makes it a vital component of preparing for climate change, which has become an important part of planning project areas for the land trusts and their partners.

Land trusts in the Sierra Nevada and Cascades operate on two principals that are critical if we are to mitigate the effects of climate change. The first principal is that whether protecting sustainable forestry, economically viable ranches or wildlife habitat, bigger is always better. Land trusts and their partners strive to protect large contiguous blocks of land and, where possible, to connect them with other protected lands. The second principal is that protecting upslope corridors will be important in providing for upslope migration of species if the climate warms. This often involves working toward protecting long stretches of river and stream corridors.

In addition to protecting habitat vital to the ability of native plants and animals to adapt to a changing climate, land trusts also protect the resources that will help reduce the impacts of increasing human influence on global climate. The woodlands and grasslands protected by conservation easements continue to remove and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that would otherwise contribute to climate change. Additionally, by protecting productive forests, ranches and small farms in rural areas, land trusts help to encourage development in areas better suited to it, thereby acting as a restraint to urban sprawl and preserving the potential for a local food economy not dependent upon long-distance transport for vital food supplies.

Land protection through conservation easements or purchase will be a vital part of any Climate Action Plan for the Sierra Nevada. These tools can permanently remove key properties from uses that would be negative in terms of climate change while keeping these lands available for sustainable timber and ranching uses that contribute to local community economies. Land trusts have been working to mitigate the effects of climate change even before most of us thought much about the issue and will continue to provide time-tested and effective tools for responding to this increasingly urgent issue.

Special features of properties are protected in perpetuity. A conservation easement is used as a voluntary long-term written agreement between the landowners who wish to protect their lands, and a land trust. A conservation easement document is tailored to satisfy the desires of the landowner and to meet the needs of the land and the community. Conservation easements are designed to guarantee that the conservation desired continues into the future.

The restrictions set forth in the easement document run with the title to the property forever. The property remains in private ownership and can be used, subject to the conditions and terms of the easement, sold or bequeathed to heirs. Conservation easements are often combined with adjacent protected lands to protect large areas of agricultural lands, cultural resources and wildlife corridors.

Another way to protect a property is for the land trust to purchase the property outright. This is referred to as a fee-title acquisition.

You can support us directly, by mailing a donation to SCLTC, P.O. Box 2101, Nevada City, CA 95959. Or click on the Donate tab.

Also, you can contact your local land trust and get involved by becoming a member. There are many volunteer opportunities to choose from.

The Sierra Cascade Land Trust Council is a regional organization, representing the Sierra Nevada and California Cascade regions. Our mission includes the following:

• Attract public and private conservation funding to the region by developing relationships with local governments, state agencies and other stakeholders.
• Serve as a voice for landowners and our members at the state and national levels.
• Coordinate action on issues affecting the region.
• Increase our members’ effectiveness by sharing information, helping them maintain high-quality standards and practices, and providing training scholarships to state and national conferences.

The California Council of Land Trusts is a statewide organization. Its mission includes these objectives:

• Increase and diversify financial resources for the broad range of land conservation needs, including protection, stewardship, education, and restoration.

• Ensure that laws and policies support land conservation, and allows land trusts to continue working effectively with their local communities.
• Increase awareness and support of local land conservation among decision-makers, media, philanthropists, and the public.
• Serve as a forum for land trusts to communicate, share ideas, and address issues of common interest.

The Land Trust Alliance is a national organization with these goals:

• Promote compliance with Land Trust Alliance (LTA) Standards and Practices.
• Track policy and legislation at the federal level that may affect land trusts and their activities.
• Provide a wide array of training opportunities at the annual LTA Rally.