Summer / Fall 2010

Vision for a Regional Conservation Strategy

by Michelle Berditschevsky, Executive Director

The Mount Shasta region has a special role in the bioregional worldview. This perspective encompasses not only natural interconnected systems but also their cultural layers that constitute the human relationship to the land. For Mount Shasta, in the late 1980s and all through the 90s, this culture made a big shift, largely because of the pivotal role played by our organization, together with surrounding Native American Tribes, in defeating a large ski-condominium development that would have commercialized and dominated the Mountain. That decade culminated in the widespread recognition of Mount Shasta’s role as a major Native American sacred site as well as an international spiritual destination and healing area, bringing inspiration, revitalization, and attunement to people from around the world, and wellbeing to local communities. The water battles of the first decade of this century—such as the Nestlé issue and the threats of geothermal development both on the Mountain and at the Medicine Lake Highlands—brought attention to the region’s value as the source of half or more of California’s waters. The Mount Shasta area’s superlative beauty, pristine purity, high quality waters and cultural significance make it a keystone landscape in California’s natural and human geography—deserving to be preserved in its integrity for generations to come.

For these reasons we are embarking on a Regional Conservation Strategy, recognizing that Mount Shasta does not stand isolated but is connected to the landscapes around it through air, water, biodiversity and animal migration routes, and human communities.

Scope of the plan

With geothermal leasing kept at bay on Mount Shasta (please see our archived articles at www.MountShastaEcology.org) and the hard geothermal battle being waged in the adjacent Medicine Lake Highlands (see p. 4), we’re currently working on a long-term conservation plan for Mount Shasta and its bioregion.

It is the first phase of a Regional Conservation Plan whose center is Mount Shasta and which includes the Medicine Lake Highlands to the east and the Trinity Divide (the range that includes Mount Eddy down to Castle Crags) to the west. The central goal of the Plan is to safeguard the huge Northstate Source-water Preserve that these large landscapes harbor, providing at least half of California’s fresh water. The springs and aquifers of our region are among the purest anywhere, and watershed values are interconnected with the health and integrity of the forests and wetlands, biodiversity and wildlife habitat, communities and economies.

Building on accomplishments

This vision integrates and builds on many of our existing programs. For over twenty years we have protected critical landscapes like Mount Shasta, the Medicine Lake Highlands, forest lands and watersheds. We envision continuing these activities through an ecosystem-level approach that we will promote with managing agencies like the Forest Service and the California Department of Forestry. This approach already has precedents in the Sierra Nevada and Los Padres regions.

It will encompass climate protection by identifying conservation needs to sequester carbon, protect water sources and aquifers, maintain biodiversity, and provide wildlife habitat, including major wildlife migration and biodiversity corridors between large landscapes. Objectives include facilitating land exchanges for important places at risk of commercialization or other exploitation, advancing collaborative ecosystem-level management, and promoting sustainability by interfacing with agencies, conservation and sustainability groups, private partners, and communities.

A collaborative bioregional approach

The prevailing piecemeal approach to conservation and sustainability tends to fragment not only watersheds and habitat, but also communities. Through furthering a collaborative approach, we aim to consolidate our programs and also bring about more community cooperation in our common goals to conserve the beauty and health of our bioregion and ensure a high quality of life for all beings in generations to come.