What a room full of former adversaries taught me about protecting forests
By Patrick Koepele, Executive Director, Yosemite Rivers Alliance
Members of the Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions and Stanislaus National Forest discuss forest health treatments to improve ecological health and reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire.
Last week, I sat in the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors chambers and watched something I wish more people could see.
A retired timber industry forester and a conservation advocate sat side by side at the same table, making the same case. Behind them, two former county supervisors, both well known as conservatives, stood up in public comment to say the same thing the environmental groups were saying. Person after person, from very different corners of this community, spoke with one voice.
They were there to ask the board to keep a partnership intact. The board listened, and voted to extend Yosemite Rivers Alliance's role managing forest health projects in the Stanislaus National Forest for the life of the county's Master Stewardship Agreement with the U.S. Forest Service, which runs through early 2038.
I'm grateful for that vote, and relieved to have it behind us. But the vote isn't the story. The room is.
Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors meeting.
An alliance that shouldn't work, and does
The people who spoke that morning belong to Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions, or YSS. It's a coalition of interests that, for decades, mostly fought each other: environmentalists, timber companies, ranchers, local tribes, recreation groups, and local, state, and federal agencies. Today it counts 39 member organizations and nearly 15 years of working together.
They came together around a simple, hard truth. The forests around Yosemite were overgrown, drought-stressed, and primed to burn. Then the Rim Fire proved it. As one former county supervisor told the board, the Rim Fire happened and everyone lost, and the one positive that came out of it was the collaborative.
So YSS did something that sounds obvious and is actually rare. Its members agreed to start from science and common ground rather than from their oldest arguments. One member of the YSS leadership team, who represents a fellow environmental organization and sits at the table alongside timber industry representatives put it plainly, "There's a lot that we could disagree on. But that's not what YSS is about. It's about what we can agree on." They identified the work everyone could support: thinning overcrowded stands, building fuel breaks near communities, protecting habitat for species like the California Spotted Owl, and safeguarding watersheds that supply drinking water to more than 3 million Californians.
In 2017, Tuolumne County and the U.S. Forest Service signed a Master Stewardship Agreement on behalf of YSS. The county serves as the Forest Service's government partner, no project moves forward without YSS's support, and Yosemite Rivers Alliance (then Tuolumne River Trust) manages the projects on the ground, from surveys and mapping to overseeing contractors and making sure every acre meets the standards the coalition agreed to.
Since then, the partnership has brought nearly $100 million in state and federal funding into the Stanislaus National Forest and treated thousands of acres. In 2022, the National Association of Counties recognized it with a national award. Shortly before the board vote, a state agency representative remarked that YSS is the envy of forest collaboratives throughout the State.
Quarterly meeting of the Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions
Trust is the infrastructure
People often ask what makes YSS work. It's not the funding, or the agreement, or even the science, though all three matter. It's trust.
That morning in the board chambers, the YSS leadership team walked the supervisors through that history. YSS's executive director described what the dashboards and acreage maps can't show: "the fabric of this effort and the trust that has taken years to grow."
Another leadership team member, a timber manager for a local forest products company, told the board she came close to losing her home in the Rim Fire as a teenager and came back to Tuolumne County after college as a forester "to care for the Sierras here and the community that raised me.”
And the forest supervisor for the Stanislaus National Forest said there are "very few, if any other collaboratives nationally" that can match what YSS has accomplished. Two chiefs of the U.S. Forest Service, he noted, have spoken before Congress about this partnership.
I was humbled to hear those partners speak on our behalf. But what struck me most was why they did it: not loyalty to one organization, but a refusal to lose a system that finally works. As one former county supervisor told the board, "This is not a commercial agreement. It doesn't work like a commercial agreement. It works on trust."
That's the lesson I keep coming back to. In forest restoration, relationships are infrastructure, as real as any road or culvert.
YSS discusses reforestation strategies and challenges
A healthy environment is not a partisan cause
Somewhere over the past few decades, environmental protection became a political marker.
The room in Sonora last week didn't fit that script. The people asking the board to protect this partnership were conservative and progressive, industry and conservation, longtime residents and agency staff. One former supervisor, a self-described "absolute advocate of putting things out to bid," told the board that in this case, the trust the collaborative has built matters more.
They may frame the issue in different words. But when it comes down to it, they want the same things: clean water, clean air, forests that don't burn catastrophically, abundant fish and wildlife, and places to take their kids and grandkids.
That's what happens when you build a coalition around shared outcomes instead of shared politics. And it's the best evidence I have that this work can outlast any election, budget cycle, or news headline.
Yosemite Rivers Alliance Forest Health Project Managers conduct a site visit in the Fall of 2024.
A model worth replicating
The Sierra Nevada is not the only place with overgrown forests, strained agencies, and communities living with wildfire risk. The West is full of them. So is much of the country.
Tuolumne County was the first county in California, and one of very few anywhere, to sign a Master Stewardship Agreement directly with the Forest Service. What YSS has built around it in the Stanislaus National Forest is a blueprint, and the pieces are transferable:
A diverse coalition that includes the interests most likely to disagree, not just the ones already on board
Science as the starting point, so decisions rest on evidence rather than the loudest voice
A government partner that can receive and manage public funding under a long-term agreement
A managing partner with deep local knowledge and the capacity to deliver projects on the ground
Patience, because the trust that makes all of this work is measured in years
None of those pieces are unique to Tuolumne County. What's rare is the decision to put them together and keep them together.
What comes next
The extension gives this partnership something it has never had before: a long horizon to plan multi-year projects, pursue larger grants, and keep experienced people doing the work they know.
It also raises the bar. Our partners put themselves on the line for us, and the best way to honor that is to keep producing excellent results, to keep improving how efficiently we use every dollar, and to keep bringing new voices to the table.
Yosemite Rivers Alliance has "alliance" in its name for a reason. We've spent more than 45 years learning that rivers and forests don't get protected by one group. They get protected when people who don't always agree decide the watershed matters more than the argument.
Last week, a roomful of people in Sonora made that decision again. I'd like to see a lot more rooms like it.
To the YSS Leadership Team and the members who stood up that morning, including Sierra Pacific Industries, the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center, the Stanislaus National Forest, Tuolumne County staff, the Mule Deer Foundation, and the former supervisors who helped build this partnership in the first place: thank you. You didn't just speak for us. You showed what an alliance looks like.
Stand with us for our rivers and forests. Your support keeps this alliance working, in the Yosemite Region and far beyond. Donate | Learn more about our forest health work.
Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions brings together conservation groups, the timber industry, tribes, ranchers, recreation interests, and government agencies around a shared goal: healthy forests and watersheds, fire-safe communities, and sustainable local economies, guided by science. Learn more at yosemitestanislaussolutions.com.
