Guest Opinion Printed in the Mariposa Gazette August 12, 2021

For generations, people have chosen to live in the Sierra Nevada for a variety of reasons, including living near opportunities for low-cost, self-sufficient lifestyles like hunting which puts food on their tables and helps to limit deer populations, fishing, certainly mining and more recently other interests such as mountaineering, photography, hiking, river-running, wildlife sightings and more.

Other people, who just want more space from their neighbors or who share common interests in local traditions have settled here. Many do not want to listen to their neighbors’ loud music or other disturbances.

Today, the Yosemite Gateway Partners (YGP), located in the surrounding communities, help bind together the historical, social and business interests of the Yosemite area. More broadly, the Sierra’s “Communities of Interest” stretch from the Kern River northward to include all of the westward flowing rivers as far north as the American River and beyond.

People living near Lake Tahoe also share our “Communities of Interest,” knowing that their families enjoy their own natural beauty and the recreational activities available there. They know that their livelihoods and businesses depend on the visitors who come there for their similar special qualities. The Sierra Business Council (SBC) serves similar binding effects in that area that YGP does near Yosemite.

Beyond the Lake Tahoe region, our “Communities of Interest” extend northward to include Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park, Mt. Shasta, Lava Beds National Monument and other volcanic features, plus many wildlife refuges and their own dispersed communities.

Traditionally, planners have used mountain ranges as borders between counties and other entities. It should be the opposite for the Sierra: the east and west sides and the northern and southern ends share similar “Communities of Interest” throughout the mountains.

Not only do the Sierra communities share common personal, recreational and business interests, but we also share similar threats from wildfires from our fire-adapted vegetation types. To counter these threats, we can adopt traditional Indian cultural burning practices to promote both cultural revival and family survival by using fire to create safer, more livable conditions for Sierra residents.

This burning can promote plants that have been traditionally used for food, medicine, basketry and more. There is an ongoing resurgence of basket-making which can provide artistic satisfaction and possibly lovely items for sale to friends, in our local galleries or online.

Our Sierra “Communities of Interest” need a vast expansion of the USDA/NRCS incentives that provide private landowners with resources to manage their lands for both productivity and community fire safety. Local prescribed burn associations (PBAs) that have their own tools, with support from CAL FIRE, can conduct fuel reduction burns that will benefit both those landowners and their neighbors.

Lastly, we need to clearly define the Sierra’s “Communities of Interest” as different from the Central Valley’s. In the past, well-funded politicians have successfully diluted our interests by attaching small portions of the Sierra’s communities to the adjacent Central Valley’s more populous congressional districts.

However, the Central Valley communities have few of the concerns or “Communities of Interest” that define those of Sierra!

Innovative programs at community colleges could train forestry and wildfire technicians and support landscape contractors to reduce fuels, so that wildfires will be less destructive. Hawaii Community College’s Forest TEAM Program with its high school outreach could serve as one model that could be adapted for use here.

Places like Bridgeport, Lee Vining Canyon, Mammoth Lakes, the Inyo and Mono Craters, June Lake Loop and the towns of the Owens Valley depend on visitors who come to access the east side of the Sierra, the Bristlecone Pines, the various hot springs and more for recreation and relaxation. The west and east sides of the Sierra are bound by these same “Communities of Interest.”

Local economies would be decimated by building more dams to export more water to the Central Valley’s corporate, mono-crop agri-businesses. We have “communities of interest” that are far different from theirs.

Ken Boche is a resident of Mariposa County