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The Sierra Institute focuses on understanding and articulating the integral relationship between rural community health and sustainable natural resource management. We conduct research on rural community issues, and facilitate education, dialogue, public involvement, and community capacity building to support community-based approaches to sustainable development.
Research
The Sierra Institute uses research methods that bring communities into the process or that bring researchers into the community ’s quest for knowledge. Involving communities in research helps improve our understanding of issues and can empower communities to participate in decisions that affect them. The Sierra Institute pursues research that contributes to improving community wellbeing and ecosystem health.
Primary and Applied Research: The Sierra Institute associates conduct primary and applied research on issues of local, regional, and national interest. These may include national studies, such as our assessment of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, legislation that provides payments to rural counties that include federally-owned lands to help with infrastructure like roads and schools, as well as collaborative projects to restore forests and waterways. It may also include local research projects that can serve as models for other places, such as understanding the economic and community-capacity contributions of the forest and stream restoration industry in Humboldt County, California.
Participatory Research: We believe that people know many of the issues and problems their communities face, and that they have a wealth of knowledge they can use to develop community-based solutions. The Sierra Institute uses “participatory research” to help rural communities and workers investigate and identify ways to address issues they identify as important. Examples include:
- Proyecto Salud: a project focused on improving health and healthcare access among rural immigrant Latinos
- Helping low-income, culturally diverse mushroom harvesters to monitor the harvest and land management activities that affect the harvest
- Partnering with Native American communities in their efforts to document, sustain, and practice traditional ecological knowledge
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Education
The Sierra Institute views education as any process that creates useable knowledge or facilitates an opening of the mind to new ideas, knowledge,
and experiences. Goals of our education work at the Institute are to advance understanding about the connections between communities and natural resources, build the capacity of individuals and communities, and develop more democratic processes to share information.
The Sierra Institute pursues education by creating forums and networking groups of similar focus and linking communities with each other, policy discussions, and resources. Some examples include:
- Tours of innovative forest and watershed restoration projects through our Center of Forestry
- Working with teachers to integrate natural resource management principles across the curriculum
- Convening dialogues and learning circles among community-based groups and policy makers about natural resource management (e.g., the Lead Partnership Group, the Pacific West Community Forestry Center)
- Developing educational brochures and an on-line spatial map of watershed data to help the public learn how to maintain a healthy watershed
- Co-sponsoring conferences on participatory research and popular education
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Practice
The Sierra Institute advances community and ecosystem health by facilitating dialogues, public involvement in policy development, and community capacity building. We work to build the capacity and resilience of rural communities to participate in decisions that affect them. Some examples include:
- Leading public involvement processes for major science and policy efforts, such as the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project
- Educating policy makers on issues important to rural communities through one-on one meetings, agency briefings, and congressional testimony
- Coordinating the Almanor Basin Watershed Advisory Committee to advise
on sustainable management of the watershed
- Facilitating workshops to build trust and capacity for collaboration between Latino community members and health and human service providers
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