Action Alert: Support Healthy Yuba Forests for Water, Wildlife & People

What is “Forest Health”?

Forest health can be broadly defined as “forest management practices that restore and sustain the ecological and social integrity of the landscape.” Such on-the-ground practices are aimed at improving the natural resilience of the forest in the face of climate change, mainly through treatments that reduce forest density and forest growth that is low to the ground and overgrown. These specific activities vary based on site-specific conditions, but may include any combination of mechanical or hand thinning and fuels reduction systems like whole and dead tree removal and grinding vegetation with machines, steep slope cable logging systems, prescribed burning, or managed wildfire.

What is the North Yuba Forest Partnership?

The North Yuba Forest Partnership (NYFP) is a diverse group of nine entities, including SYRCL, that have come together to collaboratively plan, analyze, finance, and implement forest restoration at an unprecedented scale across 275,000 acres in the North Yuba River Watershed. The work developed through this partnership is taking place primarily on the Tahoe National Forest, which accounts for approximately 75% of the land in the North Yuba watershed. The NYFP is taking an innovative approach to project design, financing, and implementation, which will serve as a model for accelerating the pace and scale of forest restoration across the Sierra Nevada and beyond. You can’t have a healthy watershed without a healthy forest.

What can I do to help?

Please consider signing our action letter to Congressmen LaMalfa and McClintock. Did you know that 90 percent of the Yuba River watershed is forested or shrub land? Over half of that land is also under federal jurisdiction. The Yuba forests need science-based policies and strong federal leadership and support in order to be successfully implemented. There is a lot of work to be done, and SYRCL needs the whole community to unite to protect the Yuba River watershed on this important issue. 

Sign Today

Did you already sign this action during the 2020 Wild & Scenic Film Festival? Great, thank you so much for your support! We would appreciate further support for our Forest Health work by donating or becoming a SYRCL member today. For more general information, visit our SYRCL Forest Health main page and check out our North Yuba Forest Partnership work as well.