I’m trying to remember exactly when I met John Svahn here in Truckee. It was probably a decade or so ago, likely during a trail-building project that involved either the Truckee Donner Land Trust, which employs John, or the Truckee Trails Foundation, on which he served as a board member. Whatever; during the course of one conversation or another, we discovered we have a mutual passion for fly fishing.
By this time I had also become an annual donor to the land trust, seeing it as a means to preserve wild lands in the part of the Sierra where I live. In talking and fishing with John, though, it quickly became apparent that although one can view the activity of the Truckee Donner Land Trust as simply protecting open space, the reality is that its work protects watersheds and thereby protects trout streams and lakes, either directly, through the purchase of these waters and adjoining property, or indirectly, through the purchase of lands that influence waters the land trust does not own.
This connection between land and fisheries protection is not necessarily well recognized by the angling community; we as fly fishers tend to focus instead on the work of fish-specific organizations such as California Trout and Trout Unlimited. But land trusts exist across California, and there’s a reasonable probability that one or more are doing good work benefiting the places you fish. Here is John Svahn to give us insight into what these nonprofits do and their importance.
Richard: What are land trusts, and how might their work help protect California’s sportfisheries?
John: Technically, a land trust is a private, nonprofit organization that, as all or part of its mission, actively works to conserve land by acquiring land in fee (outright purchase) or through purchasing or accepting donated conservation easements (legally binding restrictions as to what a landowner can develop or how they manage their property). In other words, a land trust purchases property outright or purchases an interest in a property to keep it as open space or agricultural land and manage it for environmental conservation and public access. There are more than 150 land trusts operating in California, including national organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, the Trust for Public Land, and the Western Rivers Conservancy, and regional trusts of all sizes. Collectively, land trusts have protected roughly 5 million acres in California, according to the California Council of Land Trusts.
I work for the Truckee Donner Land Trust, which was founded in 1990 and has protected over 36,000 acres in the greater Truckee region. The mission of the Truckee Donner Land Trust is to preserve and protect scenic, historic, and recreational lands with high natural resource values in the greater Truckee Donner region and to manage recreational activities on these lands in a sustainable manner.
Or as my boss’s son said when he was young, “The land trust buys mountains for kids to play on!” And on those mountains are streams and lakes with great fishing and the source water for our sportfisheries. The mission of most land trusts in California is similar. Except for the geographic location — land trusts conserve open space in the foothills, the Central Valley, in the Coast Range, and on the coast — the mission is to preserve and protect lands and waters in the Golden State.
Land trusts also steward and restore the land and usually provide public access. Many of the lands protected had previous careers as industrial timberlands, dairies, ranches, or mines, and they need a level of restoration to provide the ecosystem services they had prior to their previous uses. In our neck of the woods, the northern Sierra, more than half of headwater meadows are in need of restoration due to trenching and dewatering, a legacy of timber railroads and dairy operations around the turn of the last century. As the meadows are restored, we are seeing cleaner, colder water, higher flows, and more fish. Along with the restorations, land trusts often allow public access to places long off-limits to anglers without a hall pass.
Richard: What got you interested in this line of work? Was angling somehow an influence?
John: Yes, angling was an influence. But there was never a moment in my life when I thought, “I’m going to protect open space as a job,” never mind as a career. I think my “What do I want to be when I grow up list” went, in order: pilot, crabber, NBA player, Tour de France racer, fishing guide, fish farmer, and bicycle shop owner, none of which happened. I entered the conservation field because I had experience building trails and was living in Truckee, and the Truckee Donner Land Trust needed a trail-crew leader to oversee construction of the Donner Lake Rim Trail. It got out over time that I have a degree in natural resources management (with an emphasis on fisheries), and my role expanded to becoming the stewardship director, which is an industry term for the land manager.
When I was young, conservation was on my mind frequently, without my ever having a name for it. I grew up in a “California family” living in Maryland, but I did not have the honor of being a native Californian. My older sister was born in Sacramento, and much of my family is from Southern California, but I grew up in suburban Washington, D.C., because my father moved east for his work in the federal government. When I was a kid, we often lost our forts, fishing access, and BMX bike trails to residential development, and it was disheartening. Then, one year, we came out to Truckee on a vacation and fished a ton. It was a great trip, and I bought a Tahoe National Forest map as a souvenir. I remember staring at it on my wall and noticing that every other section on the Tahoe map was white, not green. My dad explained the concept of private inholdings to me, and I distinctly remember thinking “Oh [blank], what if all of that private land gets developed like the woods behind our subdivision did?”
But, back to angling. Angling brought me into the natural resources management major in college, which was very helpful in expanding my job description past trail construction and maintenance. Angling remains useful in my job, whether I’m focusing on stewardship, restoration, or even fund-raising. Talking or going fishing is a wonderful way to engage potential supporters.
Richard: When did you start fishing, and when did you start fly fishing? What did you find appealing about the sport, and who helped you learn it?
John: Some of my earliest memories are of frequent visits to the Shelter Island Pier in San Diego with my grandmother, to see what the day’s haul was. Later, in Maryland, I fished for bluegills, perch, catfish, pickerel, stripers, and bluefish, sometimes gobslingin’, sometimes hardware hurlin’, and sometimes fly fishing. My dad is an expert fly fisher who showed me slides from the early 1970s of steelie fishing in the American River and big brookies from Susie Lake in the Desolation Wilderness. I wanted to do that! He has always been involved with conservation, both of land and of fisheries, and was involved in the Sacramento-area club California Fly Fishers Unlimited. He always taught us to limit our kill of fish and to take care of our parks and forests. Of course, he also taught me that the West is where it’s at, and catching bluefish was OK only because there were no steelies or salmon around.
I don’t recall when he first let me use one of his fly rods, but I know it was well before sixth grade, because by that time, I had saved up and bought a 5-weight Fenwick Eagle for $68 from a mail-order house. I had my own rod and with my dad’s Pflueger 1494, I was a fly fisher! Fly tying started around that time, as well. I’m not sure what I find appealing about fly fishing, because I don’t really recall a time without fly fishing. It’s a part of me.
Richard: What’s your work entail with the Truckee Donner Land Trust? What’s your typical day look like? Is there a specialized college degree for this profession?
John: As with most small nonprofits, staff members wear a lot of hats. I am our land manager. While that sounds like I get to run around on our properties all day, my job mainly involves managing projects, lining up forestry and restoration contracts, and developing plans to manage the properties. That is, it’s a lot of desk work. I also manage our land transactions and, of course, in a small nonprofit, fund-raising and public outreach are everyone’s job. The Truckee Donner Land Trust is fortunate to have a great board of directors and a driven, hardworking staff. While there may be specialized degrees for land-trusting, I don’t know anyone who has one. It seems as if the staffs of a lot of land trusts are composed of the same kinds of people and that a person’s passion for open-space conservation and tenacity to get a project into the “Done” file are more important than a degree. At the Truckee Donner Land Trust, our director, Perry Norris, is a true visionary with unmatched tenacity and an English literature degree. Our development director, in charge of fund-raising, Kathy Englar, comes from Silicon Valley with a lengthy career and multiple degrees, but this is her first development job. Our trail guru is a former tradesman who built trails as a hobby, now as a job. Our Webber Lake manager comes from a finance background . . . you get the picture.
As for a typical day of work, there isn’t one, and honestly, that’s the fun of the job. A day at work can include assisting our trail guru and a bunch of volunteers in moving a 300-pound boulder off a trail in the morning, a lunch meeting with a potential supporter, and then an afternoon doing title analysis on a property acquisition. (Guess which is my least favorite part of that day.) Many days involve writing grant proposals, working through the challenges that accompany every project, and paperwork. Land acquisition and stewardship don’t happen without a well-thought-out strategy and execution in a timely manner. A land trust is a results-driven organization.
Richard: Tell us a little more about how you protect lands. How do you decide which lands to buy, for example?
John: The nature of the land dictates the choice of which tool a land trust will use to preserve and protect areas: fee-title acquisitions and conservation easements. In the Truckee Donner region, where most of the land acquired is undeveloped open space, a simple fee-title purchase is the best, because it gives the land trust sole ownership and allows more seamless management with public lands. In nutshell, to protect land in our region, we buy it.
In areas of agricultural land or residential land, by contrast, a conservation easement is more often used — often it is donated. A conservation easement is a document recorded on the title of the property. It is similar to any other easement, except that it protects key conservation priorities. Conservation easements are negotiated between the property owner and the easement purchaser or grantee. For example, if you own a piece of Truckee riverfront, and I want to keep the land from being developed and want to guarantee fishing access, you might sell me a conservation easement containing those provisions. The easement would then run with the land, regardless if it changes owners.
While most of the properties that should be protected — riparian corridors, headwater meadows, key view sheds, and important backcountry access points — are obvious, the Truckee Donner Land Trust does an in-depth analysis of how the property rates in priority. Unfortunately, there is not enough available funding to tackle all of the projects at once, nor are all of the current owners interested in selling. That said, we have a map with all of the “Wouldn’t it be neat if . . .” properties listed as A, B, and C priorities. Staff and board members watch each property, looking at the real-estate market, available funding, and the potential for a sale. If there is a deal to be had, a price is negotiated, then funds need to be raised. While I do look at what important fishing holes need protection, it is not the only criterion for an acquisition to rise to an “A.”
Much of the available funding for acquisitions comes from folks just like you, people who care about keeping natural lands intact. Private fund-raising covers about half of our conservation efforts. The other half comes from public sources. State funds stem from several voter-passed water bonds, Props 40, 50, 84, and 1, and from the Department of Fish and Wildlife — part of its share comes from fishing license sales. The bonds are for source water protection, river parkway protection, Caltrans impact mitigation, and the protection of the Sierra and Cascades. In the Truckee Donner region, grants are disbursed through the California Natural Resources Agency, the California Wildlife Conservation Board (a part of the CDFW), and the Sierra Nevada Conservancy. We also receive federal funding through the Land Water Conservation Fund, which is revenue from offshore oil leases, but in the current political environment, federal funding is sketchy, at best.
In addition to funding the acquisition of the property, money is raised to manage responsibly the properties we’ve conserved. Stewardship costs can be quite high. For example, thinning a heavily overstocked forest that creates an imminent fire hazard can run about $3,000 an acre. Many of the meadows we have acquired are, like most Sierra meadows, sadly degraded by roads, grazing, channel diversions, and even dams. Enhancing folks’ enjoyment, especially of the lands we’ve protected, is a cornerstone of our mission, so we invest significantly in trails and in maintaining those trails, especially after a winter like last year’s. But land trusts need support from donors just to keep the lights on and operate the business.
Richard: Does the work of the Truckee Donner Land Trust benefit California’s angling community? Are other land trusts in California providing benefit for anglers?
John: You can argue that all land trusts in California, including the Truckee Donner Land Trust, benefit anglers. This can be a direct benefit. For example our land trust, in partnership with the State of California, the Truckee Meadows Water Authority, and The Nature Conservancy, did a deal to protect and guarantee river access to several miles of the Truckee River. If you are fishing the Big T between Farad and State Line or around Floriston, you are using this access easement.
Or a land trust can be protecting headwater meadows or vital salmonid spawning habitat for source water and fisheries protection. An example of this is the Sierra Nevada Checkerboard campaign, a partnership of the trust at which I work and the Trust for Public Land. This is a campaign to acquire private inholdings within Tahoe National Forest to protect the source water of the Truckee, Little Truckee, and Yuba headwaters, as well as vital habitat and recreation areas. The Tahoe National Forest and other public tracts adjacent to the transcontinental railroad alternate square miles of public and private ownership, a legacy of the Lincoln administration, which gave every other square mile of land to the builders of the railroad instead of cash. Due to this, maps of the national forests along western railroads often resemble checkerboards.
Our partner land conservancies, the Northern Sierra Partnership, the American River Conservancy, and The Nature Conservancy, also just completed a huge acquisition and road decommissioning project to protect source water in the North and Middle Forks of the American River. The Feather River Land Trust, Placer Land Trust, and Bear Yuba Land Trust do similar work in the area, as do land trusts all over the Golden State.
There are indirect benefits, as well. A land trust can obtain a conservation easement on working agricultural land that ensures water-friendly farming and that the property will never become an impervious parking lot. Also, and not insignificantly, protection of a scenic view shed surrounding a favorite fishery by land purchase or conservation easement should not be undervalued. Being out in nature is a huge part of fishing.
Richard: What kind of fly fishing do you like to do? Any particular preferences with regard to gear and flies?
John: My favorite fishing is on small headwater streams for native fish and fishing our coastal rivers for steelies and salmon. I also enjoy keeping a few stockers or overpopulated brookies and having trout tacos or trout sushi rolls for dinner. For gear, my glass 7-foot 6-inch 4-weight gets out of the stable most often, with a size 16 Wright’s Royal my go to, easy-to-see creekin’ fly. If that’s not working, a Pheasant Tail soft hackle will do. Nice and simple. I like my steelhead fishing to be nice and simple, as well: a box of flies, some leader, and a rod and reel.
Fishing with my family is a treat, whether it is with my wonderful wife or my mom and dad, all of whom fly fish. For full disclosure, I should add that right now, my favorite fishing entails sitting on a dock on Donner Lake with my family and seeing what my six-year-old son brings in on a spinning setup. The kid can fish! He doesn’t fly fish yet, but has shown interest.
Richard: I’m not expecting you to name waters to fish on Truckee Donner Land Trust lands, given that most of these are creeks, but if you were to suggest tips on how best to explore the Sierra “off the beaten path,” what would you suggest?
John: I would recommend that readers get out a topo map and explore the blue lines. I love being pleasantly surprised by a good find in a blue-line stream. It definitely makes up for all of the long hikes to find that a blue line really should be a dashed line on the topo map.
In addition to numerous blue-line streams, the Truckee Donner Land Trust has protected some waters that are not top secret — we are proud of our commitment to public access, which includes fishing. The Little Truckee River in Perazzo Meadows can be a fun seasonal fishery. Independence Lake, which is owned by The Nature Conservancy, is a fine spot for real-deal native Lahontan cutthroats. Of note to anglers is the fleet of kayaks and the three motorboats that the Truckee Donner Land Trust has on shore there, available to users at no charge. This is to mitigate the threat of introducing aquatic invasive species. Then there is Webber Lake. Webber has been operated as a private fish camp for decades. The Truckee Donner Land Trust acquired the lake and 3,000 surrounding acres in 2012, but continued to lease the lake to a private fishing camp for five years, a condition of the sale. Now the lake is open to the public. To add to the fun, the trust refurbished and opened the campground on the lake’s shore. The State stocked Lahontan cutthroats this spring — the Pilot Peak strain. They are small, but growing, and are on the chomp. C’mon out!
Richard: Do you have any concluding thoughts for readers regarding conservation or fishing? Feel free to rant, if you’d like.
John: I do enjoy a good rant, but honestly, I like the direction in which conservation is going. There will always be threats to the places we love, challenges in managing these places for the public’s benefit, money needs Then there are the big challenges, such as a changing climate. That said, I hear a lot of good news: properties protected, native fisheries restored, cleaner headwaters, a more robust interest in protecting California’s waters the list goes on. We are also seeing environmentalists and sporting organizations — the Sierra Club and the hook-and-bullet crowd — coming together to protect our public lands and in the process realizing that both are in alignment on more than perhaps either previously imagined. The motto at the Truckee Donner Land Trust is that the glass is always half full.
Richard: Here we are at the traditional Silly Tree question: If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?
John: Not sure what I’d be, but I’d like to be a money tree. A great big one, growing next to a land trust in the Sierra or on the North Coast!
