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North America's longest unbroken chain of mountains--400 miles of dazzling granite outcroppings and forested slopes--so stirred wilderness prophet John Muir that he founded the Sierra Club more than a century ago to defend his beloved Range of Light. Thanks to legions of Club activists since then, countless High Sierra peaks, lakes, meadows, and ancient pine, fir and sequoia forests have been saved, ensuring habitat for mountain lions, wolverines, black bears, and hundreds of other plant and animal species. Also secured is a wild sanctuary where harried humans can seek rock walls and whitewater rivers for physical challenge and remote valleys for contemplation and renewal. But as today's Sierra Nevada activists know well, keeping the range unharmed is an endless, gnarly climb. Despite the Club's persistence, Sierran ecosystems are buckling under pressure from loggers, ranchers, miners, off-road-vehicle enthusiasts, water diverters, and resort developers. Gone are the grizzlies, condors, common loons, and yellow-legged frogs once found here; soon to vanish, perhaps, are red foxes, willow flycatchers, great gray owls, and the few remaining runs of anadromous fish. To mend and defend these mountains, Sierra Club activists are working to establish preserves spanning the range's entire length and breadth. Building on existing national parks, wilderness areas, and wild-and-scenic rivers, the Club seeks ancient-forest reserves and expanded protected areas. Also needed are safeguards for the oak woodlands and chaparral scrub of the Sierra foothills; a halt to forest clearcutting; regulations to keep livestock away from fragile streamsides; and an end to new ski resorts, ridgetop homes, TV towers, dames mines, roads, and other intrusive developments. The Club's objective is a Sierra Nevada wild enough to permit native species to migrate, recolonize after local extinctions, and adapt to long-term climate changes. Such a return to the wild Sierra of yore can be accomplished only if people willingly change their approach to conservation. The Club wants to replace outmoded, piecemeal land-use-planning techniques with organic, ecoregional efforts that husband entire landscapes, habitats, and watersheds. To this end, citizens in towns throughout the range will need to coordinate their actions, ensuring that each local project fits within an overall, range-wide scheme. Support for these efforts will have to come from local, regional, state, and federal governments. At the federal level, the Club is seeking permanent protection for all the Sierra's remaining ancient forests, roadless areas, and critical habitats. In particular, the Club wants to establish a Sequoia National Forest Preserve free from timber harvesting, roadbuilding, and other extractive industry. It also seeks wild-and-scenic-river legislation to protect Sierra rivers, especially the Clavey, North Fork Stanislaus, and American. No change has been more ardently sought by the Sierra Club than having the National Park Service implement a master plan for Yosemite that relocates employee housing outside park borders, develops mass transit for visitors, and reduces commercial operations. The Park Service has resisted such initiatives for years, but the Club's insistence is growing, and change is long overdue. Restoring the Sierra Nevada's natural grandeur will require intense public involvement; poring over habitat maps, conducting biological surveys, holding strategic-planning meetings, sending letters by the truckload to elected officials, and tapping new grassroots support. The reward for this persistent storm of effort, years from now when the dust settles and a rejuvenated Range of Light emerges, will be pride in having safeguarded an invaluable aspect of our natural heritage. Key Objectives
Recommended Reading More Information Contact: Subscribe to the Sierra Club California Legislative Alerts. Photo courtesy Philip Greenspun. Up to Top |
