Page 7 - California Trout Annual Report 2017
P. 7

Prove concept. Scale up.
HEAlTHY MEADOWS BRING MUlTIPlE BENEfITS
Meadows encompass less than 5% of the overall geography of the greater Sierra Nevada, yet they are biological hotspots that provide important bene ts to  sh and wildlife while helping sustain the headwaters crucial to California’s water supply. Snowpack in
the Sierra provides a natural form of water storage, but the effects of climate change
are expected to decrease snowpack by up
to 40% by 2050. Warmer temperatures will cause what snow we do get to melt earlier and faster, making it more challenging to store for use later in the year. Restored Sierra meadows can help counteract these effects of climate change, by providing water storage up high that slowly releases over the summer.
In healthy condition, meadows serve as
a sponge with highly organic soil that accumulates for hundreds of thousands of years–providing truly long-term carbon sinks. However, 40-60% of these meadows are in
a degraded state. Restoring the ecological function of these meadows can increase the bene ts of carbon sequestration and water storage while providing diverse habitats for  sh and wildlife.
During the summer of last year, we restored the 90-acre Osa meadows. We changed the creek from an incised, linear stream to a more shallow and curved, more natural, one.
This summer, once the roads were passable, we went back to take measurements to verify if the restored meadow is indeed functioning as anticipated.
The  ndings to date show that healthy
and restored meadows have the ability to sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our goal is to restore 30,000 acres of degraded meadows by 2030.
This amount of carbon reduction would be equivalent to removing over 100,000 cars from the road. Restored meadows, of course, also provide important habitat for  sh like the Golden trout.
forests, meadows, and other natural and working lands store immense amounts of carbon. They are the safest, most expandable carbon sink on earth, which is why Governor Brown and the legislature have described them as the “ fth pillar” of California’s
climate strategy. CalTrout, leading the Sierra Meadows Partnership, started with one meadow to prove the concept. Now, together with our partners, we can scale up and commit to restoring 30,000 acres by 2030, making California resilient to the impacts of a changing climate.
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