Page 29 - The Cedars - Sonoma County Treasure

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
provided the backbone of the nancial support for the project. Gary Knoblock and the staff
at the Foundation lent a steady hand through various scenarios and ups and downs during
the challenging process. The Foundation truly does have an unwavering commitment to environmental conservation and science. The microbiology programs, the salmonid habitat and the very high level of biodiversity present at The Cedars make it a natural t for the Foundation. The Foundation also made additional grants to document and archive in map based programs the rst 30 years of Roger’s botanical explorations at The Cedars saving an incredible wealth of scienti c information.
The California Coastal Conservancy
provided secondary funding for the project.
Sam Schuchat, Karen Gear, Lisa Ames, Elena
Egger and more staff realized how this project
t so many of the criteria of this important
State agency including the protection of the
headwaters of a pristine coastal watershed along with the prime salmonid habitat. They also saw the values in the education and science programs. An integral part of these two funding agencies’ missions are to work with one another on projects to get the best minds together and also to stretch resources to maximize their returns. The Cedars project is
a perfect example of agencies and people coming together for a positive long-term conservation project.
Save The Redwoods League were
the grantees of the donations of the project and the overall managers of the process. Ruskin Hartley, Catherine Elliot, and Shawn Marchand were among the many staff, and Kate Anderton, League Counsilor, worked to achieve a conservation outcome on this property
as part of their commitment to working within the larger redwood forest regions and creating habitat corridors and continuity.
The US Bureau of Land Management were the ultimate recipients of the donation of land and are the long-term stewards to which the lands are trusted. Rich Burns and Alice Vigil and much more supporting staff from the Ukiah and Sacramento of ces of BLM worked hard and creatively to assure that The Cedars would become part of their portfolio. The BLM working with Roger Raiche as a volunteer were responsible for creating the rst permanently preserved lands at The Cedars with the BLM’s long-term holding of 1500 acres of core pristine serpentine canyon landscapes. The addition of the 500 acres Main Canyon to the BLM ACEC increased critical habitat for the rare plants and biota of the land as well as for the research and education potential.
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