Thank you! Your enthusiastic support has made 2024 a truly extraordinary year for Sierra Foothill Conservancy. In our growing role as a community institution, we are elevating our land conservation, community engagement, and land stewardship efforts across SFC’s service region and at the state level. Because of you, SFC was able to conserve an additional 11,028 acres in 2024 bringing our total acres conserved to 65,188 acres! This year is characterized by growth and expansion across our programs and region. In addition to this landmark year of acres conserved, our youth education programs reached more students across our service region, instilling in them a passion for becoming the next generation’s stewards of the land. At the same time, our land management efforts have increased to landscape level fuels reduction and reforestation projects, providing critical support for the health and resilience of our conserved lands. As we take on more responsibility in protecting our natural spaces, we ask for your continued support to help us sustain and expand this vital work. Your generosity makes all the difference.

SFC reached an unprecedented milestone in our ongoing strategy this year to increase the pace and scale of conserving land in connected corridors by permanently protecting multiple projects in the 50,000-acre Merced River and vernal pool grasslands conservation corridor. The 10,361-acre Waltz-Turner Ranch Conservation Easement (CE) is the largest land project in SFC history! This level of work has a high impact for conservation and SFC’s leadership role on a statewide scale. By collaborating with working cattle ranch landowners, our sister organization the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo and engaging the help of larger organizations like The Nature Conservancy alongside our state agency partners, SFC was instrumental in the completion of two linked CE projects totaling nearly 38,000 acres conserved in high-priority conservation regions across central California! Thanks to supporters like you, the Waltz-Turner Ranch’s critical habitat, working landscapes, and open space will now be protected forever.

Expanding on the Waltz-Turner project, the 571-acre Indian Gulch CE was also completed this year thanks to competitive funding from the California Department of Conservation’s California Farmland Conservancy Program. Landowner, Jen Taylor, is an inspiring example of women ranchers who play an important role in local land conservation. In addition to her ranch operation, Jen is the primary large animal vet for the surrounding ranching community. Her practice is a vital aspect of the web required to support the health and sustainability of the local ranching economy. The Indian Gulch CE is another important link in SFC’s landscape-level strategy to forever protect the 50,000-acre Merced River and vernal pool grasslands conservation corridor.

Together we also celebrate an innovative milestone with the 96-acre Big Rock rematriation project which returned ancestral lands to the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation for the first time in 175 years! This small but mighty step supports SFC’s goal of partnering with local tribes in a meaningful way to restore the ethics and values of indigenous people and indigenous stewardship to the foothill landscape. The Big Rock collaborative effort represents a very meaningful example of SFC’s ability to fulfill the partnering landowner’s conservation vision, while simultaneously supporting a long-held goal of our tribal partners and assisting the California Wildlife Conservation Board in meeting their statewide goals for land and water conservation. Collectively, these projects are achievements that have leadership impacts for SFC at the local and state level. These accomplishments demonstrate the true breadth and impact that SFC’s diverse and skilled land conservation work fulfills, not only for our landscape-level conservation efforts, but also for the healing and sustainability of our communities into the future.

As increasing catastrophic wildfire events continue to adversely affect our region, SFC is rising to the call to action by evolving our role in the stewardship of our conserved lands. Just like the climate, what it means to steward the conservation values of our lands is changing, and we know that this is work that none of us can do alone. We are working with community partners to collaboratively and proactively address the immense and urgent needs of our region by developing programs and seeking resources to implement preventative measures to build more resilient landscapes. SFC was recently awarded nearly $7 million in funding through the CAL FIRE Forest Health Grant Program to conduct critical fuels reduction and fire recovery reforestation work on a large suite of our conserved lands located between the Sierra National Forest and rural residential communities at increased risk of wildfire devastation. The grant includes funding for our primary project partner, the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation and their landscape stewardship program. This collective work supports indigenous workforce development, returning good fire to the land, and implementation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge through black oak regenerative practices. We are learning from indigenous practices and philosophies that are so well-aligned with our mission to care for the land in perpetuity – to think and act with the next generations in mind, while also honoring the wisdom of the past.

Regenerative principles are also a foundation of SFC’s Rangeland Management Program. Agriculture can be a purely extractive use of the land, or it can be an integrated part of a balanced ecosystem.  SFC was recently awarded a Healthy Soils Program grant to be implemented at SFC’s Ted K. Martin Wildlife Preserve in Clovis. This California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Healthy Soils Program provides funding to implement healthy soil building practices on agricultural lands across the state. With a special focus on our rangelands, SFC will implement this program to improve carbon sequestration and ecosystem functioning at the landscape level and educate our communities on the value of these practices for our land and people. Our Rancher-to-Rancher workshops hosted on SFC’s McKenzie Preserve engage the community and rangeland managers in an exploration of the many benefits of regenerative practices and conservation grazing which include enhancement of habitat for wildlife and native plants. Our intention is to increase understanding of the value of regenerative agriculture and demonstrate practices for producers to replicate on their own ranches. This program is enhancing the conservation values on our lands and multiplying our impact through sharing with our community of landowners.

By joining SFC in support of critical conservation work like the programs and projects outlined above, you are contributing to the health and sustainability of the natural landscapes and future of our communities. As we approach the end of this landmark year in SFC’s conservation journey, we thank you for the role you play as a valued supporter, and we ask that you consider making a meaningful gift to help us reach our fundraising goal of $160,000. As one of our generous donors recently reminded us “It’s all in how you look at it… how many times in your life do you get the opportunity to contribute to forever?”

Your support is the acorn that helps us grow mighty oaks for future generations!

We humbly invite you to make a meaningful year-end donation to Sierra Foothill Conservancy, a permanent investment in the resilience of our natural heritage and the enduring legacy that we are building together. Your financial support will directly fund critical land conservation and stewardship projects, educational initiatives, and community engagement efforts, amplifying our collective impact. We hope you will join us in this shared mission, as together we forge a legacy of conservation and environmental stewardship, ensuring a vibrant and sustainable tomorrow for all. Donate today and help our vision for a diverse and sustainable relationship with our natural lands continue to flourish. Thank you for being an essential supporter of SFC’s conservation journey!