Rural communities are undergoing dramatic changes as natural resource and agriculture dependent economies and lifeways give way to tourism and service-based economies. These changes have impacts like changing demographics, lack of affordable housing, worker displacement and loss of family jobs, insufficient access to healthcare, and declining school enrollments. The Sierra Institute works to understand these changes and impacts on rural communities, and build the capacity of communities to respond proactively.

Examples of our work to understand and advance sustainable rural community development include:

• Plumas Latino Healthcare Access Project
  
  
• Western Center of Forestry
  
  
• Assessment of the Impacts of Land Fallowing on Farmworkers
  
  
• Socioeconomic Characteristics of the Natural Resources Restoration System in Humboldt County
  
  
• Tribal Economic Development: Building with Strengths and confronting Challenges
  
  
• Building Capacity for Participation Among Latino Natural Resource Worker Communities in Region 6
  
  
• Northwest Economic Adjustment Initiative Assessment
  
  
• Against the Odds: (Re-)Building Community Through Forestry on the Hoopa Reservation
  
  
• Indian Valley Community Forum
  
  
• Grupo de Trabajadores Hispanos (Group of Hispanic Workers)
  
  
• Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project
  
  
• Yosemite National Park Flood and Closure Social Assessment
  
  
• Klamath Region Social Assessment
  
  
• Effects of displacement and outsourcing on Woods Workers and their Families
  
  
• The Westwood Community Survey 2000: A Report of Results
  
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