The Sierra Nevada Group of the Sierra Club presents Revitalizing Ecosystems: Beavers Role in Expanding Floodplains and Restoring Wetlands – A Nature – Based Solution on Thursday May 9, 2024 at Seaman’s Lodge 423 Nimrod Street Nevada City at 6:30 pm. Everyone is welcome.
One of our advertised speakers, Matt Berry, Restoration Ecologist at Sierra Streams Institute accepted a new job with Anabranch Solutions, as a Riverscape Restoration Project Manager. His new job prevents him from being our presenter. We are pleased that we will instead have Joshua Zupan, Lead Restoration Technician at Sierra Streams Institute, where he assists with a variety of restoration and monitoring projects. Josh lives within the Deer Creek watershed in Nevada City and is a certified Beaver Believer!
Dianna Suarez will be presenting as well. Dianna is a retired Forester after 36 years working for the US Forest Service. Since retirement, she has become an environmental advocate and proponent for the interests of K’umim Seyu, the living Bear River. She lives along the Bear River in Colfax and visits K’umim Seyu often.
Josh will speak to some of the restoration practices that mimic or involve beavers and how they work, as well as some of the current research and news around beaver restoration and relocation in California. He will also talk about a project on Beale Air Force Base which hosts a robust population of beavers and how their natural presence is leveraged to restore creeks and wetlands. Josh says he is one of the many restoration practitioners in recent years who see beavers as a role model, because of the far reaching effects they have on riparian and wetland ecosystems.
Dianna has been observing the dynamic processes evolving at the Bear River Fishing Access related to functional flows and beaver impacts within the riparian ecology for 16 years.
Hydraulic mining washed away the foothills, leaving vast cobble deposits that filled the rivers. These are the ‘bones of the mountains’, where the Bear River is building living ecosystems once again, with the help of functional flows and the Bear River Beavers.
The Sierra Nevada Group of the Sierra Club announces recipients of our two $1000 2024 scholarships
Evan Vanderwouw has spent his high school years actively involved with the Sunrise Movement (Young people working to address the climate crisis as a real crisis and advocating for a Green New Deal). His goal is to pursue a career in Forest Ecology with a primary interest in writing environmental policy in the Non Profit, or Government sector.
Delaney Sherr spent her youth living in North Columbia, as her parents both worked at Malakoff Diggins State Park. She plans to become a State Park Ranger with additional study in Sociology and Herpetology. As a Ranger, she is certain to use the Sociology background in enhancing the experience of diverse populations that enjoy our parks.