The dramatic light and height of the Sierra Nevada Mountains were immortalized by Ansel Adams, who devoted much of his career to capturing their unique beauty on film. They are the tallest and longest range in the lower 48 states, reaching almost 14,500 feet and stretching 400 miles. As with many “scenic” rural areas, the growing resident and tourist populations are taking a toll.

“We’ve been going through the same kind of transition that so many other rural regions are,” says Jim Sayer, president of the Sierra Business Council. But Jim sees at least one key difference – the proximity to the San Francisco Bay area. Says Jim, “I’ve argued that the Sierra is one of the rural areas in America most exposed to metropolitan influences. You’ve got 40 or 50 million people who can easily access the Sierra with no problem. You can be in the heart of the mountains and then be in the heart of the city in just three hours. So it raises all sorts of issues for the future development of the Sierra.”

The Sierra Nevada make up 20% of California’s land base, are the source of 62% of its water, yet they receive less than 2% of the state’s natural resources funding. According to Jim, “In the early 90s there was a lot of ferment about the Sierra, not only in the region, but statewide and nationally, because of increasing academic and news attention to the region. There was a vacuum here as far as regional groups that were focused on quality of life and environmental issues in the region.”

Several new groups were launched at this time with a focus on protecting the Sierra environment. Lucy Blake had worked in conservation in the Bay Area for many years, and she owned property in the Sierra Nevada. Says Jim, “Lucy had a different take on the issue. She began to talk with a number of business owners and found that many of them were concerned about the future ecological health and social and business environment too.”

“She learned that there was this large constituency that wanted to do the right thing for the environment because they knew that’s how their businesses were going to prosper in the future, by having a healthy Sierra – both environmentally and economically.”

In 1994, Lucy launched the Sierra Business Council, an association that now includes over 550 business members ranging from large ski resorts, banks and casinos to single-operator software companies and auto repair shops. It is the first business-led regional campaign in the U.S. promoting sustainable development. The Council “explicitly rejects the notion that our communities must choose between economic and environmental health; on the contrary, we believe that environmental quality is a cornerstone of economic health.”

Because the Sierra region was in transition, the first need was for data. Says Jim, “At the start, the Council focused on information gathering, trying to create baseline indicators that people could understand and could use to gauge how the region was doing. Because we’re a rural region, we didn’t have the same kind of information resources that most metropolitan areas do. So the Council launched the Sierra Nevada Wealth Index, and the idea was to try to track indicators of health, in terms of social, financial and natural capital of the Sierra Nevada.”

The first edition of the Index included 42 indicators and was published in 1996; a follow-up came out in 1999, providing more in-depth information at the county level. Both have garnered considerable attention in local and national press, and from other groups interested in replicating the project. Jim describes the picture of the Sierra Nevada painted by the Index: “Basically what we have is a hybrid region where we’re heavily influenced by urban areas, but yet we’ve got a lot of issues and advantages that accrue to rural regions.”

“The Sierra, like a lot of desirable rural areas, has something of a mailbox economy where you’ve got a lot of people who are drawing checks from retirement or other sources, so they’re not necessarily earning their income in the region. We also learned about the fragility of the environment, whether it is declining old growth forests or low levels of protection, especially in the foothill areas. A lot of times people do divorce the foothills from the crest area when they think of the Sierra. We try to get them to think of the broader region, including the foothills.”

In addition to information gathering, the Council invested in networking people and building leadership skills. It has been sponsoring annual leadership and facilitation training courses for seven years now. Says Jim, “It’s been a great way to develop more of network, because the Sierra is the longest mountain range in the lower 48, and it’s high, so it’s hard to get around and meet a lot of other people. We get all types from all parts of the region.”

Recognizing the need to provide local land use planners with more tools, in 1997 the Council released a reference guide for rural planning, Planning for Prosperity. The guide advocates for a shift to compact, town-based development in order to preserve the quality of life and rural character that attracts capital. “We’re making progress on town planning. We’ve done some work with small communities on establishing design guidelines for their communities.” A follow up guide called Investing for Prosperity featuring 40 case studies from around the country will be released soon. Says Jim, “It’s going be a great guide to alternative ways of thinking about rural economies in the 21st Century.”

According to Jim, “The second phase for the Council was moving into on-the-ground projects. One is a Working Landscape Initiative, which works with ranchers and farmers on how they can improve their business prospects and also preserve their properties.” Most of the remaining privately-owned open space in the Sierra Nevada is owned by ranchers, many of whom are struggling.

In the Sierra Valley, the largest alpine valley in the state, the Council just brokered their first land conservation deal in partnership with The California Rangeland Trust and The Nature Conservancy. “We brokered a conservation easement on a 13,000-acre ranch – it’s about 10% of the whole valley in one fell swoop. We were able to get a deal where the ranchers are happy with the amount of money they got from the easement, and we were able to get conditions in the easement as to how the land will be managed by the current and future owners. We’re managing it for habitat because it is a major deer corridor right in the heart of the valley.”

“So that was the first deal, and we’ve got more than 20 other landowners that are very interested in doing something similar.”

Another on-the-ground project is in Placer County, which Jim describes as, “the fastest growing and one of the most conservative counties in California.” With rapid development threatening wildlife habitat, the county was heading toward extensive environmental litigation. Instead the Sierra Business Council began developing a collaborative process. “It was very low key at first, but ultimately won the trust of the Board of Supervisors, won the trust of all the major interest groups, including the Farm Bureau, the building industry, and the Sierra Club, so it was a wide spectrum of groups. Ultimately it produced an open space protection plan for Placer County with a lot of different techniques involved.”

“The key was to then find funding for this program, because it would require some acquisitions,” says Jim. Local officials brought a sales tax increase before the voters to fund the program, but were delivered a resounding defeat. Jim sees a silver lining. “It was ultimately helpful because local officials decided to find others ways to fund the program. So they’ve used general fund money; they’ve been very successful in writing grants and getting money from federal and state sources.”

Jim was recruited by Lucy to replace her as President of Sierra Business Council in 2001. Says Jim, “She’s always thinking ahead. When she started to think about what she would be doing next – because she wanted to be a mom, and succeeded – she started talking to me. We talked over the course of about a year and finally I decided to do it.” Jim brings diverse experience working across sectors on environmental and community development issues. He acknowledges that, “It’s been a hard time because the organization has gone through a lot of transitions. It’s always one of the hardest phases going from the founder to the next phase.”

Jim expects the Council will continue to pursue both research and onthe- ground projects. “We’re a hybrid and I think we always will be, because there’s really nobody else to step in on the research side.”

“I do believe – and it was one of the reasons that I took the job – that there’s an opportunity for us to help members understand how to improve their business bottom line and their environmental performance. We just struck up a deal with some ski resorts in the Sierra and a regional water quality board to do an innovative program to find different ways for them to manage their slopes, so they can reduce soil erosion, improve water quality, and boost profits.”

“The terrific thing about our members is that they’re looking at thebig picture, not just their bottom line. They know that ultimately a healthy Sierra means a better place for them to do business and to live.”

Contact
Sierra Business Council
PO Box 2428
Truckee, CA 96160
530.582.4800
www.sbcouncil.org