RED CLOVER VALLEY PROJECT

First started in the summer of 2018, Maidu Summit Consortium staff, youth, and elder volunteers assisted the local Sierra Fund with their meadow restoration project at Red Clover Valley. MSC has contracted with the Sierra Fund to provide a work crew that would provide labor for a job that is similar to the proposed work we’ll be doing at Humbug Valley in the years to come. Along with the work crew, MSC also provides a Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) elder, in this case, Lorena Gorbet, from our member organization Maidu Cultural Development Group. We plan to continue working on the project over the next couple of years as needed. It was exciting to see our first major off-site land restoration project go so well. We have since agreed with the Sierra Fund to expand the work we do with them for planning and installing more beaver dam analogs, or (BDAs), in the future.

Instrumental to the success of our team is Alisha Wilson, MSC’s Interim Coordinator. Our youth volunteers earn a stipend and travel funds. MSC also supplies all of our work crew with a full array of camp gear and outdoor equipment needed for the remote work camp. This new gear was purchased by way of proceeds earned as project income for performing this job. There are so many ways that this particular collaboration helps us with our goals. We gain new capacity with each new day of work experience we earn. The project personnel that Sierra Fund provides technical skills and insight that our staff and volunteers can learn from, all while applying the techniques in a real-world scenario. Beyond this, securing a substantial amount of camp gear will give us a lift when it comes to recruiting more youth volunteers in the future.

The project site has a very similar makeup of vegetation, wildlife, and other features as does Humbug Valley. That is what makes the Red Clover Project so important to us.