Sponsored Programs
RRI continues its tradition of providing fiscal sponsorship and mentorship to deserving projects that share our values and are led by dedicated individuals.
Ocellus Media
DANIEL DIETRICH, PRODUCER
Tailless is abeautifully filmed and scored documentary about a Chilean photographer’s efforts to protect Chile’s pumas. In 2013, Daniel Araya encountered a puma born without a tail. Little did he know how this charismatic puma would change his life. The puma leaves the safety of her home range of Torres del Paine, Chile, and reappears in Argentina, where it is still legal to hunt pumas. Tailless documents Diego's efforts to save her and how these events changed the future for Chile's pumas. The film recently premiered at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, CA.
Jacques Leslie, Environmental Writer
Jacques Leslie’s new book will cover the last two decades in the Klamath River Basin, and will show how the nation’s most contentious watershed became the site of the world’s largest dam removal project. It will focus on two inspirational people at the heart of the struggle for an equitable, basin-wide solution to the Klamath’s problems—a rancher and a tribal leader. In a larger sense, this is a quintessential saga of the American West in the 21st century, depicting the intense battles and the emotions arising from decisions involving water.
Granite Chief Wilderness Protection League
PATRICIA SCHIFFERLE, DIRECTOR
Granite Chief Wilderness Protection League (CWPL) coordinates a coalition of prominent environmental organizations to defend the pristine, federally-protected Lake Tahoe wilderness area from development. In 2020, GCWPL filed suit to halt the gondola project and secured a settlement agreement with Palisades Tahoe (Alterra). The settlement limits gondola operations and provides funding for conservation easements in the Granite Chief Wilderness Area and critical Sierra Nevada Yellow legged frog habitat and research. GCWPL remains actively involved to assure that the terms of the settlement are being carried out.
Washoe Meadows Community
LYNNE PAULSON, DIRECTOR
A 15-year campaign to halt expansion of a golf course into South Lake Tahoe’s Washoe Meadows State Park—a park granted protection “in perpetuity” by 1984 legislation—ended in victory when State Parks withdrew its environmentally ruinous and statute-breaking plan. While this withdrawal eliminated golf course incursion, the community and coalition partners remain vigilant to ensure that Washoe Meadows and surrounding sensitive lands remain protected.
Californians for Western Wilderness
MICHAEL PAINTER, COORDINATOR
A citizens group founded in 1997 to secure protection for wilderness areas and public lands in the western U.S., CalUWild facilitates citizen involvement in administrative and legislative actions. These include the expansion of Berryessa Snow Mountain and San Gabriel Mountains National Monuments; building support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act; and several wilderness bills and national monument proposals such as the Amargosa Basin, the tribally-led Chuckwalla, Sáttítla, and Kw’tsan in California, and the Bahsahwahbee in Nevada.
Public Trust Alliance
MICHAEL WARBURTON, DIRECTOR
The Public Trust Alliance (PTA) uses the legal framework provided by the Public Trust Doctrine to protect and defend natural resources for future generations. The Alliance works with communities to assert their right to ecologically sustainable and socially just management of resources.
Donate today to support RRI’s work.
We are so grateful for the contributions of our community. Launching critical new programs and cultivating the next generation of environmental stewards wouldn’t be possible without the support of people like you.