Page 9 - Sierra Meadows Strategy

Purpose
The Sierra Meadows Strategy (Strategy) is a living document intended to guide Sierra meadow restoration, protection, and conservation (henceforth conservation), by describing desired meadow conditions and how the development and application of measurable objectives to achieve those conditions can facilitate rapid, integrated, and cost effective recovery of meadows
and the services they provide. The shared vision of the Sierra Meadows Partnership is a greater Sierra Nevada region with healthy and resilient meadows that provide sustained goods
and services to bene t ora, fauna and people. This document is intended as a decision support framework which supports
and complements strategies developed by Federal and state agencies and other institutions involved in the broader meadow conservation effort (i.e. the State Water Action Plan; United States Forest Service Region 5 Restoration Strategy; and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Sierra Nevada Business Plan).
Sierra Meadows Strategy Structure
This Meadows Strategy offers an opportunity to articulate and pursue common goals using a systematic, scienti c approach that can integrate across the Strategy Area, landscape, watershed and meadow scales. The Strategy provides guidance relevant
to identi cation of healthy meadows, pre-restoration, restoration and post-restoration considerations as well as approaches
to addressing institutional, permitting, funding, capacity and partnership needs and includes speci c guidance on:
• Development of spatial prioritization for the Strategy Area to achieve landscape-scale desired conditions and desired outcomes;
• Development of watershed (e.g., HUC 12) and meadow-scale desired conditions;
• Development of objectives that support desired conditions and outcomes;
• Development of restoration and protection actions and adaptive management;
• Improved institutional, permitting and funding conditions and capacity necessary to increase the pace, scale and ef cacy of meadow restoration;
• Next steps necessary to fully implement the Sierra Meadows Strategy.
Sierra Meadows De ned
This Strategy offers a relatively inclusive de nition of meadows developed from multiple sources22-25. In the simplest terms, meadows are de ned by six hydrology, vegetation and soil characteristics. Meadows in the Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascades in California have these characteristics in common:
1. A meadow is an ecosystem type composed of one or more plant communities dominated by herbaceous species;
2. Meadows support plants that use surface water and/or shallow groundwater (generally at depths less than 1 yd.) during at least 2-4 weeks of the growing season;
3. Hydrologic sources include snowmelt, surface water from streams, and/or groundwater discharge near the land surface (generally at depths of less than 1 yd.);
4. Woody vegetation, like trees or shrubs, may occur and be dense but are not dominant;
5. Soils range from mineral soils to highly organic soils (peats);
6. Low stream gradients, if a stream channel is present, typically less than 2%.
The Partnership
The Sierra Meadows Partnership rst began very informally with the implementation of the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation’s Sierra Nevada Meadow Restoration Business Plan20 and has subsequently grown, particularly with respect to engaging an array of partners involved in meadow restoration in a more coordinated manner.
In February, 2014, a Sierra meadows workshop was convened
in Calistoga, California with the intent of further enhancing coordination and developing a vision for Sierra meadow restoration moving forward. An outcome of “Calistoga 1” was
the recognized need and development of an initial framework
for a proposed “meadow strategy.” Since the initial Calistoga gathering, there has been a focused effort on the part of many stakeholders to complete a Sierra Meadows Strategy, including three workshops convened at U.C. Davis and a second Calistoga workshop convened in February 2016 where more than 20 different entities actively participated in discussions that largely centered on developing the Strategy. It was during the “Calistoga 2” workshop that involved stakeholders decided to recognize the stakeholders involved as the Sierra Meadows Partnership.
Today, the Partnership comprises entities engaged in meadow protection, management, restoration and applied research
to establish a common vision and approach necessary to increase the pace scale and ef cacy of meadow restoration and protection in the greater Sierra Nevada region for the bene t of people and ecosystems. Consensus from the partnership on a path forward is re ected in this Strategy. Leveraging necessary resources and the strategic changes required to increase the pace and scale of meadow restoration and protection in the greater Sierra Nevada region is a shared goal of all.
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