Your Support for Conservation Helps Address the Challenges our Region Faces
Dear Land Trust Supporter,
In recent years, the best and brightest have figured out something you and I have known for years: conservation is a key component of addressing the environmental challenges our region and world are facing.
Your generosity has given the Land Trust a thousands-of-acres head start on state and federal strategies that prioritize protecting our nation’s natural lands. And when you combine those acres with lands protected by the US Forest Service and California State Parks, the benefits multiply to a landscape scale.
Sunrise on Frog Lake Cliff.
The 40,000 acres you’ve partnered with the Land Trust to protect are just the beginning, and there’s so much more to do. Your gift today will help the Land Trust protect the next 25,000 acres we have identified as critical in our ongoing conservation goals.
Open space conservation is one of the most important steps we can take in addressing catastrophic wildfires, threatened watersheds, and dwindling biodiversity.
Protecting more open space means the Land Trust can work with our partners and neighbors on large-scale forest health projects that reduce wildfire severity, while also reducing rural sprawl – as the Land Trust continues to do at Royal Gorge on Donner Summit.
Preserving watersheds ensures clean water for wildlife and downstream communities. Restoring meadows helps the land better store and deliver water throughout the summer’s dry months – as seen in the Land Trust’s work with our partners at Perazzo Meadows.
A sandhill crane in Lower Carpenter Valley. Photo by Bill Stevenson.
And conserving habitat is one of the best ways to slow the decline of biodiversity – even reversing it – as we’ve seen with the return of species like sandhill cranes in places like Lower Carpenter Valley.
Together, with your generosity, we can reduce wildfire severity, preserve watersheds, and support biodiversity in the Sierra through conservation and restoration, for nature, for people, forever.
Beyond those important aspects of the Land Trust’s conservation work, there are the less quantifiable, yet still tangible benefits of protecting open space that you and I enjoy.
All of us appreciate having nature all around, whether it’s to take in expansive views of forests, mountains, and meadows, or going on an adventurous hike, run, or ride on the Donner Lake Rim Trail.
There are new studies every year that show the human health and wellness benefits of time spent in nature. From lowered health care costs, to boosting mental wellbeing, nature plays an important role in our health.
Friends and family hiking into Frog Lake. Photo by Simon Williams.
More protected lands are key as increasing numbers of people are encouraged to recreate in the outdoors. And the Land Trust’s strategic acquisitions create new opportunities for a more diverse cross section of our population to access wild and wonderful places.
Your gift today will help the Land Trust conserve more open space and build more trails for you, your family, and your neighbors to explore, play in, and come to love for all their natural wonders and health benefits.
While the environmental challenges we face today are significant, so too are the speed and scale at which we are growing the work you and the Land Trust have been doing since 1990. Acre by acre, property by property, you and I are making a difference in the northern Sierra and beyond.
I hope you are as excited as I am for the next 25,000 acres – the next protected forests, the next preserved meadows, and the next conserved habitats that will help ensure a vibrant future.
I wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season, and I hope to see you out on Land Trust lands in the coming year.
Happy trails,
John Svahn, Executive Director
P.S. Please make a gift to partner with the Truckee Donner Land Trust today. Your generosity will help ensure our continued success in conserving open space and protecting natural resources in 2024 and beyond.