Project Planning
- | Community & Collaborative Engagement |
- | Landscape-Scale |
- | Environmental Compliance |
How do we promote collaboration in our project planning?
Sierra Institute is committed to advancing restoration work through engagement with partners and community members. Our goal is to ensure projects restore ecological integrity and meet community objectives and priorities. Depending on the project, these parties include:
- Federal agencies
- State agencies
- County government
- Industrial timberland owners
- Tribes and Tribal organizations
- Local businesses
- Private landowners
- Resource Conservation Districts
- Environmental groups
- Interested community members
What is landscape-scale restoration, and how do we achieve it?
The unprecedented severity and complexity of forest and watershed health issues in California require solutions that occur at a large scale and across jurisdictions. While "landscape-scale" does not translate to projects with a certain number of acres, the aim is to address problems at the scale at which they occur.
To achieve this, Sierra Institute takes a multi-jurisdictional approach (i.e., works across land ownership boundaries) to address natural resource issues. By bringing together diverse partners, we can acknowledge common interests, recognize the range of issues across our landscapes, and build capacity for landscape-scale solutions.
How do we ensure environmental compliance?
NEPA and CEQA
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) require agencies to consider and analyze the potential effects to the environment from actions they take and to share that analysis with the public for review. These environmental compliance processes include collecting resource-specific data, analyzing potential impacts from project actions, and sharing this information through public forums (e.g. field tours, meetings). Sierra Institute assists partners including the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. National Park Service, and private landowners with the environmental compliance process in order to complete timely, community-informed restoration projects that maintain, restore, and enhance the landscapes we depend on.