Your Support is Vital for Caring for Open Space
As the summer rolls on here in the northern Sierra, it’s been gratifying to watch so many of you out enjoying Land Trust lands. There are favorites like the Webber Lake Campground as well as new opportunities to explore like Truckee Springs. Already there are walkers, runners, and riders enjoying the new pedestrian bridge and dipping their feet in the river along the new stretch of the Legacy Trail.
A family enjoying Truckee Springs. Photo by Helen Pelster.
The many smiling faces out on our protected properties and trails brings stewardship into sharp focus – a reminder that acquiring open space is only the beginning. Building and maintaining trails, caring for the campground and huts, and restoring healthy forests, meadows, and watersheds all takes ongoing work.
Fortunately, thanks to supporters including you, we continue to tackle the varied and growing list of stewardship projects that go along with our lengthening list of protected lands.
Please make a gift today to ensure that with each new open space gem protected, the Land Trust’s team is ready to care for your lands now and forever.
I’ve heard many happy stories from guests at the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts this year and from folks who explored Lower Carpenter Valley for the first time.
New boardwalk under construction in Lower Carpenter Valley.
Yet, the fires of this summer in our backyard also draw attention to the need for ongoing stewardship on our lands. With your support, the Land Trust has completed more than 1,400 acres of forest fuels reduction work in the last two decades to increase the odds of forest resiliency and to help protect adjacent neighborhoods. This work is ongoing and we are committed to maximizing our efforts to treat many more acres annually.
The Land Trust has long partnered with our neighbors to make landscape-scale changes that improve wildfire resiliency and help protect adjacent neighborhoods and the headwaters of three major California rivers – The North Fork of the American, South Yuba, and the Truckee.
Your gift today helps the Land Trust manage healthy forests for wildfire, for habitat, and for the enjoyment of generations to come.
The Land Trust’s wonderful volunteers help maintain our 50 miles of trails, while also making significant headway in building our new dirt trail at Truckee Springs. Whether you spend the day with us swinging a McLeod hoe or make a gift to help us keep our volunteer programs going, you are critical to the ongoing care of the recreational opportunities so many cherish.
Trails make me think of the future, too. Your support will help the Land Trust reach our strategic goal to acquire tens of thousands of acres of more open space – preserving landscape connections for wildlife and creating new trails for people.
I look forward to connecting miles of new trails for all to explore, and I am proud that each project connects wildlife migration corridors critical to the fauna with which we share our beloved home.
Please support the Truckee Donner Land Trust with a gift today to help us move forward in protecting more open space and caring for our growing protected lands – for nature, for people, forever.
Whether you’ve been a supporter of the Land Trust for decades, or recently joined us by exploring one of our protected lands, your support is the bedrock of our ability to steward our forests, meadows, trails, and more.
As the summer winds down, I hope you get out to enjoy the lands you’ve helped care for. There’s nothing better than a visit to Royal Gorge, Elizabethtown Meadow, or Johnson Canyon to remind us why this work is so important. Thank you.
See you on the trail,
John Svahn, Executive Director
P.S. Your gift today will help the Truckee Donner Land Trust both protect more open space in the northern Sierra, and care for it for generations to come. Thank you for supporting conservation and stewardship in a place we all love.