Past Successes

Socioeconomic Indicators for Watersheds with application in Mariposa County, California

The purpose of this project is to identify and assess social and economic indicators and measures for watersheds in order to inform the California Department of Water Resources' Watershed Framework. This pilot project is focused on Mariposa County's three watersheds: the Upper Merced River watershed, the Upper Chowchilla River watershed, and the Mariposa Stream Groups watershed.  Socioeconomic indicators and measures facilitate assessment of conditions and tracking of trends that could affect or be affected, either negatively or positively, but local watershed planning and other management actions.

The Department of Water Resources' Watershed Framework is a statewide effort that includes pilot projects to identify and assess indicators and measures of landscape and ecological condition and other biophysical characteristics and processes.  The Mariposa pilot project is unique, as it is the only project int he Watershed Framework focused solely on social and economic indicators.  The indicators and measures examined in Mariposa watersheds are applicable to other watersheds as well, ans can be used to help resource managers, planners, and other stakeholders elsewhere understand important social and economic conditions and trends in watersheds.

Making Room at the Table: Pacific West Community Forestry Center

From 2000 to 2004, the Sierra Institute hosted the Pacific West Community Forestry Center, part of a national pilot project, and focused our efforts on partnerships with under-served communities in forestry. We used participatory research to help communities identify and address issues important to their well-being and livelihoods, and the forests on which they depend. While the Pacific West Center is no longer active, we continue our work with under-served communities through participatory research, education, and practice.

The Lead Partnership Group - A Laboratory of Community Collaboration

From 1993 to 2003, the Sierra Institute collaborated with 15 watershed and community groups to help break through the gridlock and conflict that enveloped natural resource policy and decision-making, and halted work on the land. By convening such groups from Southern Oregon and Northern California, the LPG brought together representatives of environmental groups, timber industry, and rural residents to identify collaborative principles and equitable processes. The LPG spent a year turning group ideas into core themes in community-based resource management, including all-party monitoring, participatory public processes, reinvestment in rural places, and stewardship. Funds were then found to pilot these ideas in projects on the ground. The LPG provided a laboratory for developing and testing out principles for collaboration and community-based natural resource management.

Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team - Bringing Rural Voices to National Policy

In 1993, the Sierra Institute participated in President Clinton's Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team (FEMAT) and guided the assessment of forest-based communities and their capacity – a community's ability to respond to external and internal stresses, to create and take advantage of opportunities, and to meet the needs of residents. Following FEMAT, the Sierra Institute convened community-based groups and invited national policymakers to meet with them to make recommendations about how to advance adaptive resource management and how to work effectively with communities, particularly with respect to the President’s Northwest Forest Plan (the "spotted owl" plan). These meetings were catalysts for engaging rural people in future research and policy work, and forming the Lead Partnership Group.