Conservation Strategy for the Sierra Checkerboard Initiative

The Sierra Nevada has been an integral part of the heritage of California and has played a profound role in the history of the nation.  However, the extensive and varied resource values of the Sierra Nevada, so essential to the lives and well-being of the citizens of the state, are increasingly threatened by conflicting land management objectives resulting from the checkerboard ownership pattern, expanding residential development, and threat of catastrophic fires that are a product of the private-public land ownership patterns in the north-central Sierra.  In recognition of threats to the rich legacy of the Sierra Nevada, The Trust for Public Land (TPL) is implementing a conservation vision for this landscape—the Sierra Checkerboard Initiative— to produce a more sustainable landscape in the north-central Sierra.  TPL and its partners—the Sierra Forest Legacy (formerly Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign) and the Truckee Donner Land Trust—share a set of common goals and wish to address resource and development issues at a scale not previously undertaken in the region.  These issues include watershed protection, wildlife and wilderness values, recreation and open space, adaptation to climate change, sequestration of greenhouse gases, sustainable timber harvest, and appropriate development.