Donner Summit info

Media Release July 8, 2009 Contact: Tom Mooers (530) 265-2849


DONNER SUMMIT LANDS
DESIGNATED FOR CONSERVATION

Nevada City, CA – Conservation non-profit Sierra Watch released its Donner Summit Conservation Priorities today, furthering the case for permanent protection of Donner Summit. The report designates land for conservation based on a combination of forest health, wildlife habitat, and water quality values.

“Donner Summit is one of last great unprotected places in the Sierra Nevada,” says Tom Mooers, Executive Director of Sierra Watch. “This report establishes the ecological importance of the region and reinforces the urgent need to Save Donner Summit.”

The region in question spans the crest of the Sierra south of Interstate 80; it includes towering peaks, headwaters of the American and Yuba river systems, and old growth forests. Donner is perhaps best known for its recreational and scenic values, including a popular stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail. It’s arguably the most important cultural crossroads of the American West, traversed by ancient footpaths, the Emigrant Trail, and the Old Lincoln Highway. And its natural resources are significant on a global scale.

“The Sierra Nevada is recognized as one of the most biologically diverse regions of the world, and Donner Summit supports important, and increasingly threatened, elements of this diversity,” says Michael White of Conservation Biology Institute. “Our Donner Summit Conservation Priorities demonstrate that this iconic region presents one of the truly great opportunities to protect a functioning Sierran landscape for generations to come.”

The future of Donner Summit, however, is uncertain. In 2005, developers Foster/Syme bought nearly 3,000 acres of Donner Summit land, including the existing Royal Gorge Cross Country Ski Resort, and immediately began to shape a development proposal.

That proposal, as outlined in initial planning documents, would carve up the landscape into a series of sprawling development projects. In order to service the new subdivisions, developers would remake Donner Summit with new roads through local forests, new dams in Sierra headwaters, and 200 acres of sewage ‘spray fields’.

Sierra Watch commissioned a team of planning and biological experts to offer an alternative framework for planning the future of Donner Summit, based on its conservation – as opposed to its speculative – value. Consultants distilled decades of research, tapped local expertise, and layered digitized maps to create the final map and report, available online at www.sierrawatch.org; click on “Donner Summit”.

The report compiles a range of existing research, from carnivore networks to stream corridors. Compelling data includes the presence of standing trees that sprouted in the 13th century and, remarkably, more than 115 species of butterflies.

“With the healthiest forests in the Sierra Nevada, the headwaters of key river systems, and an unparalleled sense of place, Donner Summit deserves better than pavement subdivisions,” said Mooers of Sierra Watch. “This report provides a baseline for planning a healthy future for the region.”


Sierra Watch is a non-profit organization working to protect the incomparable natural resources and unparalleled quality of life in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Sierra Watch spearheaded the collaborative effort to protect Tahoe’s Martis Valley and provides conservation leadership for threatened Sierra landscapes. For more information, call (530) 265-2849 or visit www.sierrawatch.org.

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