From Saving the Sierra press release:
BAY AREA, SACRAMENTO, and
NORTHERN SIERRA FOOTHILLS BROADCASTS
Tune in for the broadcast of
Saving The Sierra: Grassroots Solutions for
Sustaining Rural Communities
Saturday, April 19 at 2:00pm on
KQED, 88.5 FM in San Francisco and
89.3 in FM Sacramento
and
Tuesday, April 22 at 1:00pm on
KVMR 89.5 FM Nevada City
Two years in the making, this beautifully designed, hour-long public radio program, was produced by two-time Peabody award winner Catherine Stifter and award-winning community media maker jesikah maria ross with funding from the California Council for Humanities California Stories initiative, and in partnership with The Sierra Fund, the Sierra Nevada Alliance, and the Center for Sierra Nevada Studies at Sierra College.
The Sierra Business Council produced an online toolkit for listeners to learn more about the issues covered in the program.
Urban development threatens rural communities across America. People who live and work in these beautiful landscapes face some tough decisions about the future. Saving The Sierra’s producers Catherine Stifter and jesikah maria ross traveled California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range to explore communities in the midst of struggle against the development pressures closing in on them. In each place, they met unlikely allies who came together to find grassroots solutions for sustaining both the environment and their ways of life.
Most rural communities within driving distance of sprawling cities and suburbs face development pressures. And most urban dwellers have been to a place just like the communities in these three stories:
In a remote mountain valley, both ranchers and environmentalists have begun to use conservation easements to save open space and preserve the largest wetlands in the mountain range.
In a small town north of Lake Tahoe, resort development will blanket the mountain with million-dollar luxury homes. But after a long legal battle, a deal was struck that will provide permanent, on-going funding for affordable housing, public transit, and habitat restoration.
The city of Los Angeles was forced to become a leader in water conservation because of a landmark legal ruling that kept them from draining an entire watershed in pursuit of drinking water.
Roger Adams, Program Director of Wyoming Public Media, notes, “The issues examined in Saving the Sierra, while located in the Sierra Mountains of California, could as easily be along Wyoming’s Wind River Mountain range, in Florida’s Everglades, on the shores of the Great Lakes or in any stretch of former farmland now lined with rows of condos.”
Steve Baker, Program Director of KVMR-FM in Nevada City, CA says, “Saving The Sierra offers an exceptional hands-on approach to complex environmental, growth and resource issues. While based in the natural but threatened beauty of the Sierras, this radio special genuinely uses that landscape as a metaphor for the country and the planet, for that matter. It’s a symbol of radio that seeks solutions, making Saving The Sierra a national example of how we can—and will—be smarter in sustaining community, ecology and economy.”
The documentary is airing nationally for Earth Day on public radio stations across the country.
You can listen to a podcast of the program, explore an interactive map of Sierra stories, and share some of your on the project blog.
Contact jesikah maria ross for interviews and more information.
530-758-4219 or info@savingthesierra.org
