Radio documentary 'Saving The Sierra' offers models for preserving rural communities

A new radio documentary, "Saving The Sierra: Grassroots Solutions for Sustaining Rural Communities," will start airing today on stations across the country in conjunction with Earth Day. The program seeks to explore the challenges facing rural areas in California's Sierra Nevada range that are targeted for development. The hour-long program is the result of two years of work which included a series of public radio broadcasts and community story sharing activities such as a mobile storybooth, audio workshops, listening sessions and an interactive Web site. According to the project Web site's, these multiple methods help create "numerous opportunities for broad public interaction, reflection, and dialogue on saving the Sierra."

The documentary includes a story about ranchers and environmentalists collaborating to preserve open space, a story about a battle over a luxury development near Lake Tahoe and a story about Los Angeles and its pursuit of more drinking water. In a news release, Roger Adams, program director of Wyoming Public Media, said that while these are local issues, their lessons can be applied elsewhere. “The issues examined in Saving the Sierra, while located in the Sierra Mountains of California could as easily be along Wyoming’s Wind River Mountain range, in Florida’s Everglades, on the shores of the Great Lakes or in any stretch of former farmland now lined with rows of condos,” he said.

The program is sponsored by The Sierra Fund, the Sierra Nevada Alliance, the Center for Sierra Nevada Studies at Sierra College and Sierra Business Council. For a listing of radio stations airing the program, go the project's Web site. To listen to a podcast of the program online, go here. The project encourages rural bloggers and listeners to leave feedback at the project's blog.