California Tahoe Conservancy: Progress Report

As discussed earlier, the Conservancy is including interpretive elements in most of its programs. The Conservancy also contributes to many other interpretive and educational activities, including the Trout Creek Service Learning Project in South Lake Tahoe and the Biannual Watershed Sampling Day sponsored by the United States Geological Survey.

The Conservancy also works with King's Beach Elementary School in a special program to promote awareness of restoration projects and the need to preserve restored areas. Students are also given classroom and field demonstrations teaching plant identification, seed collection, and plant propagation.

Through these programs, students are informed of the Conservancy and its programs, and encouraged to help preserve the environment.

Since 1991, the Conservancy, in cooperation with a number of other agencies and organizations, has also assisted the Tahoe-Baikal Institute in a University-level international environmental exchange program.

The Institute, a non-profit organization which also provides support for other professional and scientific exchanges between California and Siberia, each year brings together about 20 advanced students from North American, Russia, and other areas of the world for ten weeks of exploring the natural and human environments of two of the world's most unusual freshwater lakes -- Lake Tahoe and Lake Baikal in Siberia.

Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal, a World Heritage Site, is nearly 400 miles long and 80 miles wide. It is the largest freshwater lake in the world (by volume), the deepest (more than a mile in places) and the oldest. It holds more than 20% of the world's unfrozen fresh water. Like Tahoe, it has extremely clear waters, which are being threatened by human activities.

Lake Tahoe Program
At Tahoe, the TBI program's focus is on scientific approaches to understanding the threat to water quality, and on planning and community-based approaches to protecting the watershed.

Participants meet with environmental decision-makers and experts, attend lectures and panel discussions, conduct field research, and participate in two-week team projects sponsored by environmental agencies and organizations.

Through these and other activities, participants learn how environmental policies are formed and implemented, and how political and administrative bodies work in tandem with scientific researchers to develop means of protecting the natural environment.

The students also have a chance to help directly in preserving the Tahoe Basin through site restoration and other hands-on projects supervised by the California Tahoe Conservancy and the California Conservation Corps.

Special emphasis is currently being placed on the work of non-governmental organizations, which play an important a role in mobilizing attention and support for research protection efforts.

A number of TBI students have had an opportunity to serve as interns with organizations of this kind after they have finished the exchange program.

Baikal Program
At Lake Baikal, the students participate in a similar work and study program, sponsored by regional governments and other institutions.

The TBI program not only provides a unique vehicle for students and others to exchange ideas on how to preserve the water quality and natural resources of these two lakes, but also an opportunity to develop greater international understanding and cooperation.

The program is supported entirely from corporate and foundation grants, individual donations, and student fees. Some in-kind services are provided also by the Resources Agency of California and its California Tahoe Conservancy, the California Conservation Corps, the University of California, and other public and private entities.

At Lake Baikal, similar services and some funding are provided from Russian sources.