- Author: Molly Stephens
- Author: Roger Bales
The new film "California's Watershed Healing" documents the huge benefits that result from restoring forests to healthier densities. UC Merced's Sierra Nevada Research Institute partnered with the nonprofit Chronicles Group to tell the story of these efforts, the science behind them, and pathways that dedicated individuals and groups are pioneering to scale up these urgent climate solutions.
"California's forests are at a tipping point, owing to both climate stress and past unsustainable management practices that suppressed wildfires and prioritized timber harvesting," explained UC Merced Professor Roger Bales, who was involved in developing the film.
Covering over 30 million acres - nearly a third of the state - these iconic ecosystems provide water, recreation, habitat, carbon storage and serve other needs. But they now contain too many trees, packed too closely together.
"California's diverse ecosystems are facing unprecedented challenges as rising temperatures intensify the threat of wildfires and disrupt the delicate balance of our natural resources," said California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot.
The overaccumulation of dead wood, leaves and other organic materials on the forest floor and buildup of small trees - which serve as "ladder fuels" moving fire from the forest floor up into the canopy - has been compounded in recent years by climate warming. Returning more low-severity fire to the landscape is one effective tool for combating heavy fuel loads.
"Restoring fire to these forests, which evolved to experience frequent fire, is critical, despite the risks associated with prescribed, intentional burning," said UC Merced Professor Crystal Kolden. "Partnerships help to give a voice to everyone involved, including historically excluded groups such as the tribes that have burned in these forests for millennia."
"The new production vividly documents the reality of the watersheds' demise and the hard work of new partnerships involving land managers, water agencies, the private sector, counties, universities, community groups and other public agencies to advance the pace and scale of forest restoration," said Jim Thebaut of the Chronicles Group, director and executive producer of the documentary.
"Restoration efforts focus on removing fuels, which lowers the projected severity when a fire does occur," Bales said. "Yet these thinning projects are very expensive. That is where partnerships that can develop creative financing and monetize the benefits of restoration come in."
"We need to use all of the collaborative forest-management, scientific and financial tools at our disposal if we are to address the wildfire challenge at a meaningful scale," said Phil Saksa, chief scientist at Blue Forest, a nonprofit organization focused on creating sustainable investment solutions to environmental challenges. "Leveraging the value provided by all the beneficial outcomes from this work is essential for motivating long-term investments in the natural infrastructure that is our forests and watersheds."
The film explores how scaling up promising investments can ensure a more sustainable future.
"This documentary serves as a poignant reminder that the health of our forests is intrinsically linked to the well-being of our communities," said Crowfoot. "As we confront the impacts of climate change, it is imperative that we scale up our efforts to restore resilient forests, safeguard our water sources and foster thriving communities. By prioritizing sustainable practices, we can forge a path toward a more resilient and sustainable future for all Californians."
"The watershed is a vital component of California's economy, which is interlinked and linked to the United States and the rest of the world," said Thebaut. "It is the foundation for the state's water supply, which is critical to its far-reaching businesses and food security. The current state of the watershed is evidently grave, and unless fast measures are taken, the United States' national security would be jeopardized."
The current film is a sequel to the Chronicles Group's 2019 30-minute "California's Watershed" documentary, which was distributed on PBS and focused on the critical importance of forested headwaters to California's water security. That water supports the state's economy, equivalent to the fifth largest national economy in the world. It also supports the agriculture that is critically important to food security for the United States.
"California's Watershed: Healing" will be shown Sunday, Feb. 18 at the 22nd annual Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City and Grass Valley, followed by a panel discussion with scientists, decision makers and filmmakers. Event information, including the film trailer, is available online .
This story was originally published on the UC Merced Newsroom website. Read the original posting here: https://news.ucmerced.edu/news/2024/new-film-profiles-immediate-actions-restore-californias-wildfire-vulnerable-forests
- Author: Brent Hales
Recently I visited with our colleagues at UC Merced and UC Santa Cruz – UC's newest Agricultural Experiment Station campuses.
At UC Merced, we met with administrators, faculty and staff for a tour of campus. There, we were shown some of the vast rangelands that encompass the UC Natural Reserve System sites managed by UC Merced and the site for the new agricultural research park. The plans feature teaching spaces, research plots, public engagement opportunities, and sites for collaboration with industry leaders.
The visit to the UC Santa Cruz campus and community gardens were very different from our visit to Merced. UC Santa Cruz features a fully functional farm that provides high-quality produce to students and community members at little or no cost. We also toured their aquaculture facility wherein rainbow trout are grown for both research and consumption.
You can read more about our visit to UCSC at https://news.ucsc.edu/2023/10/aes-designation-planning-campus-visit.html.
We are excited to engage with both campuses as they become fully integrated into our Agricultural Experiment Station network.
- Author: Mike Hsu
The Fresno-Merced Future of Food Innovation Initiative (F3) – of which UC ANR is an anchor institution – took a big step forward during the UC Regents meeting May 18.
The Regents unanimously approved the formation of F3 Innovate – a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit that will raise funds for the partnership initiative that also includes the Central Valley Community Foundation (CVCF), California Department of Food and Agriculture, UC Merced and CSU Fresno.
Largely funded by a $65 million Build Back Better grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, F3 aims to advance innovation and entrepreneurship in agrifood technology, strengthen food systems, bolster local and regional economies, and bring greater prosperity to the San Joaquin Valley and beyond.
The new F3 Innovate nonprofit will focus on agrifood systems research and commercialization, services for micro-enterprises and small businesses in under-resourced communities, ag-tech innovation seed funding, and building a talent pipeline to sustain these efforts.
“This 501(c)(3) is critical to all of that, because it really lets us bring together the public and private partners, and ensures that broader stakeholder participation and benefit,” said Glenda Humiston, UC vice president for agriculture and natural resources, during her presentation to the Regents (view recording of the meeting).
UC Merced Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz and CVCF President and CEO Ashley Swearengin also spoke passionately during the meeting about the need to form the nonprofit as a key connector and catalyst for the F3 initiative.
F3 – and the new F3 Innovate – will continue to take shape through the work of Gabe Youtsey, UC ANR chief innovation officer; Josh Viers, associate dean for research of UC Merced's School of Engineering; and many other academics and staff across UC ANR and UC.
"Establishing F3 Innovate as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization is a strategic move designed to unlock and accelerate agriculture technology from lab to market. It will pave the way for a wider range of collaboration opportunities between the UC and industry, and ensure the inclusion and representation of all our stakeholders, from small and socially disadvantaged farmers to startups and corporates," said Youtsey, who is also founder of The VINE, UC ANR's Innovation & Entrepreneurship program that is co-leading F3.
"The UC Regents were enthusiastic about this partnership as it aligns perfectly with our mission of transforming cutting-edge agricultural research into practical, market-ready solutions while doing the hard work of engaging our local workers, communities and farmers to adopt these new technologies," Youtsey added. "It enables us to foster deep and meaningful collaborative relationships with industry partners, advancing technology commercialization that is inclusive and truly beneficial to all involved."
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Safeeq Khan of UC ANR among collaborators on forest treatments in the Sierra
Despite the challenges of an extremely dangerous fire season, including California's largest wildfire in 2022 (Mosquito Fire) impeding access and limiting operations, partners of the French Meadows Forest Restoration Project have wrapped up their fourth season of forest treatments in the critical headwaters of Tahoe National Forest. Safeeq Khan, Cooperative Extension specialist in water and watershed sciences with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, is among the collaborators.
This season, project partners safely treated over 700 acres of federal land using a combination of mastication, mechanical thinning, hand thinning and prescribed fire. On adjacent private land, the American River Conservancy independently raised funds and treated 338 acres. Combined, this all-lands collaborative watershed management project has treated over 6,000 acres in just four seasons.
Work this season focused on areas most prone to wildfire ignition. The United States Forest Service treated over 200 acres with prescribed pile burns in and around the Talbot campground, improving the aesthetic quality of this important recreation area just north of French Meadows Reservoir. Although dry conditions limited the scope of prescribed burns this year, using fire as a management tool is a cost-effective way to maintain forest conditions that contribute to ecosystem resilience and human health and safety.
“Prescribed burns are a critical component of the partnership's ecological forestry model,” explained Edward Smith, forest ecologist and fuels manager with The Nature Conservancy. “Under ‘prescribed conditions' of wind, moisture and temperature, broadcast burning helps reduce the amount of tinder on the forest floor as well as fuel ladders that could otherwise carry wildfires into the tops of trees, protecting habitat for humans and diverse wildlife species. Fire also reduces brush and twigs to ashes that feeds the roots of trees and understory plants, protecting the soil and its microbial universe, making them more resilient to drought, insects and climate change.”
Mechanical thinning, hand thinning, and mastication operations continued in areas surrounding water research instrumentation, installed by the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at the University of California, Merced. Over the coming years, researchers will be assessing how vegetation changes in ecologically-based forest management affect water quantity in the local watershed.
“Optimal restoration of forested headwaters benefits from dedicated partnerships collecting scientific data,” said Khan, who is also an adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Merced. “UC Merced is working to provide this dimension at French Meadows with strategic measurements and modeling.”
Perhaps the partnership's biggest success in 2022 was securing, via multiple grants, the remaining funding necessary to complete all the thinning operations defined in the original project plan. Since the project's inception more than six years ago, the partnership has operated under an innovative funding arrangement consisting of local, state and federal dollars combined with private donations.
“What has impressed me most about the French Meadows partnership is its commitment to see the project all the way through: start to finish,” said Tahoe National Forest Supervisor Eli Ilano. “With the new funding secured this year, we will be able to wrap up thinning operations, and turn our focus to managing and maintaining the land for the enjoyment of the public.”
American River District Ranger Mary Grim with the U.S. Forest Service added, “This partnership learns from each year to adaptively manage for resilient forests that benefit everyone. The French Meadows Project is a reminder of what can be accomplished with a shared sense of stewardship for our forests and natural resources.”
Fuels reduction work this season resulted in more than 1.066 million board feet of overstocked timber, which was brought to a local mill, with the revenue generated offsetting some of the restoration costs. Project partners also repaired over seven miles of roadway and culverts to reduce sedimentation.
“Under the threat of a second consecutive severe fire season, including the Mosquito Fire in our own ‘backyard,' the partnership diligently moved treatment activities forward and began discussions on how to sustain the project's benefits through long-term maintenance planning,” said Kerri Timmer, regional forest health coordinator with Placer County, who coordinates the stewardship agreement with the Tahoe National Forest.
The catalyst of the French Meadows Forest Restoration Project was the 2014 King Fire, which burned over 97,000 acres in the American River watershed, much of it at high intensity. Eager to reduce the risk to hydroelectric assets, water quality, and biodiversity from future high severity wildfires, Placer County Water Agency joined with Placer County, The Nature Conservancy, the United States Forest Service, American River Conservancy, Sierra Nevada Conservancy, and the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at the UC Merced, to form the French Meadows Partnership.
The project spans more than 22,000 acres of federal land, nearly 7,000 acres of private land, and is a test case for the partnership's effectiveness in improving fire resilience and the overall health of the watershed.
To learn more about the French Meadows Forest Restoration Project, visit and tour the Project's story map.
/h3>- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
UC President Michael Drake announced during the UC Regents meeting Nov. 16 that UC will designate UC Santa Cruz and UC Merced as Agricultural Experiment Station campuses.
The Agricultural Experiment Station is a network of campus-based scientists whose mission is to develop knowledge and technologies to address agricultural, natural resources and health issues. UC's AES faculty members conduct land-grant mission research and UC Cooperative Extension puts that knowledge in the hands of people who can apply it to improve their lives and businesses. The Hatch Act of 1887 established Agricultural Experiment Stations at land grant colleges in each state.
The AES, which is a component of UC ANR, currently includes the three agriculture and natural resources colleges at UC Berkeley, UC Davis and UC Riverside, and the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis.
“Both UC Santa Cruz and UC Merced have long conducted research on agricultural issues, so it is appropriate that these campuses also receive this designation and have their work recognized as contributing to the overall UC agricultural research portfolio,” Drake told the regents. “With the AES designation, Santa Cruz and Merced have the potential to receive additional funding from the University's budget for this research, and they will be able to make a stronger case for competitive grants in the larger agricultural research area.”
Vice President Glenda Humiston, who also serves as director of AES in California, congratulated our colleagues at UC Merced and UC Santa Cruz for joining the Agricultural Experiment Station and welcomed their collaboration.
“The San Joaquin and Salinas valleys are critical agricultural regions in California so UC ANR already has UC Cooperative Extension specialists at both UC Santa Cruz and UC Merced conducting research on agriculture and food-related issues,” Humiston said. “Having these two campuses receive this AES designation expands UC's agricultural research portfolio, which will help us develop the solutions needed for the many challenges Californians face.”
UC Cooperative Extension specialists Tapan Pathak, Karina Diaz Rios, Safeeq Khan and Jackie Atim are based at UC Merced and UC Cooperative Extension specialist Joji Muramoto is based at UC Santa Cruz.
“Our campus has been working toward this designation for some time and I'm so pleased that the hard work of our faculty and staff has paid off,” said UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Cynthia Larive.
Josh Viers, UC Merced professor of watershed science and associate dean for research, wrote on LinkedIn: “Not only does the official Agricultural Experiment Station (AES) designation for UCM and UCSC provide legitimacy among our peers nationwide, but importantly it recognizes our recent efforts to tackle the most difficult challenges we face to feed a planet under a rapidly changing climate. This designation makes us eligible for new opportunities and in so doing make further investments into our research infrastructure including our Experimental Smart Farm.”