Goals & Needs

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Originating in 1998 from a need to safeguard a family ranch threatened by development, the Shasta Land Trust (SLT) has since conserved 26,017 acres. These acres are comprised of agricultural lands, wildlife habitat, riparian corridors, and open spaces, building the foundation of the organizational mission to conserve the beauty, character, and diversity of significant lands in northern California, with plans to add 33,000 additional acres by 2023. With the help of the GrizzlyCorps fellow, SLT will be able to continue to conserve properties at our current pace and increase capacity even further, protecting vulnerable lands in our community, encouraging regenerative agricultural practices, preserving local food resources, and empowering landowners to practice proper land and forest management for fire resilience, sustainable ranching, and wildlife habitat. The fellow would also enable SLT to expand outreach to the landowners of our conserved properties, connecting them with valuable resources to sustainably manage their protected lands. The fellow will work closely with the Stewardship Director and Conservation Projects Manager, as well as with landowners and our project partners in ongoing collaborative planning efforts across the region. The fellow will also represent SLT in various public settings and participate in community engagement, stewardship, and conservation activities.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Assist in coordinating the completion of conservation easement projects. Working with staff to conduct project due diligence, draft and negotiate easements, and draft and review baseline documentation and land management plans for protected properties

• Manage and track projects, including creating and maintaining records for each project.

• Draft correspondence and reports for landowners, partners, committees, Board of Directors, and follow up from site and monitoring visits.

• Assist in the development of appropriate maps and GIS data.

• Participate in communications and landowner engagement related to SLT’s mission, including the development of a landowner specific website.

• Spearhead a new specialized approach to the annual monitoring of our currently protected properties.

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Capacity Building Projects

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• The GrizzlyCorps fellow will expand the capacity of Shasta Land Trust through three capacity building projects: (1.) Climate Resiliency: Landowner Outreach, (2.) Climate Resiliency: Strategic Conservation, and (3.) Conservation Easement Monitoring. These capacity projects would allow SLT to increase our outreach towards landowners regarding climate-smart practices, directly aid our staff in the completion of strategic land conservation projects through the completion of valuable fieldwork, GIS, and conservation document preparation, and free up staff time previously spent on annual monitoring to bring more land conservation projects to completion. As our organization has continued to grow our Conservation Easement portfolio, the time commitment needed to complete our annual monitoring of protected properties has increased significantly. This has resulted in a need for a more targeted approach to annual monitoring, which the fellow would help provide. The fellow’s assistance with annual monitoring and in-progress conservation projects coupled with a climate-smart strategic conservation plan that will be completed in December 2022 would be invaluable in furthering our organization’s ability to increase the pace and scale of land conservation to meet the goal of Biden’s nationwide 30 by 30 conservation plan. This means that more at-risk lands would be able to be protected, particularly those that will be most resilient in the face of impending climate change. In addition, increasing outreach towards landowners would enable us to connect them with valuable resources to manage their properties in ecologically minded, climate-smart ways, and connect them to funding sources for essential property improvements. This will further increase our region’s resiliency to climate change, something that would be impossible without the help of the GrizzlyCorps fellow and current staff workload.​

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Organizational & Community Highlights

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Shasta County is geographically diverse, spanning across miles of beautiful oak woodlands, vibrant wildflowers, mountains, lakes, wild and scenic rivers and waterfalls, and forests. Redding, the home of the Shasta Land Trust, sits nestled in the upper Sacramento Valley, just south of Shasta Lake and east of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, and is home to the upper reaches of the Sacramento River and its tributaries. It is well known for its salmon and trout fisheries, along with hiking, mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding, camping, and other outdoor recreational activities that are just a short drive away, making Redding the perfect basecamp for the outdoor enthusiast. Shasta Land Trust’s headquarters are situated on seven acres of productive agricultural land and native gardens directly on the Sacramento River, where staff enjoy observing a multitude of waterfowl, quails, turkeys, deer, foxes, and other wildlife right outside their windows, and enjoy taking lunches out on the back deck just above the river. Staff is friendly and professional, and work as a tight knit team to accomplish strategic organizational goals, making sure that every voice is heard. Working for a small non-profit like the Shasta Land Trust will give fellows valuable team building and organization skills, as well as networking opportunities and hands-on experience both in the field monitoring and documenting properties throughout the county and behind a desk drafting and preparing conservation documents, land management plans, and GIS work.

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