It’s a Match
The Tambour Foundation expands access to the Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserves
Encompassing over 200 acres across two locations in Mammoth Lakes, UC Santa Barbara’s Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserves (VESR) are places of breathtaking beauty and prolific hubs for research and teaching. And they’ll soon be doing a lot more of both, courtesy of a generous new gift from the Tambour Foundation.
Motivated by part-time Mammoth residents and philanthropists Ruth and Roger MacFarlane, the donation to VESR will support students, staff and researchers, outreach programs for all ages, and essential infrastructure projects at the two research outposts, part of the UC Santa Barbara Natural Reserve System.
The Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserves include 156 acre Valentine Camp, right in the city of Mammoth Lakes, and the nearby, 55-acre Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory (SNARL) just a few miles east, off U.S. Highway 395.
“We have such diversity in our ecosystems in the state and we have this reserve system to allow research into all of it,” Roger said. “I’m very happy to be involved with such an engaged university system as the University of California, and a component of that system in UC Santa Barbara that is stewarding these two reserves under the leadership of Carol Blanchette.
“Since having a home in the Sierras, coming to understand the history of the Sierras, and trying to preserve some of it for posterity other than national forests and wilderness areas, it seemed like Valentine Camp and SNARL are two hidden jewels that I didn’t know anything about,” he continued. “It seemed incredibly opportune timing to do something about it, and with an energetic and enthusiastic director like Carol it seemed like a nice match. I thought this would be an appropriate place for Tambour, a foundation I’m involved in, to make a grant.”
Blanchette, reserve director and a research biologist herself, characterized the gift as a “celebrated event.”
Tambour’s commitment, she said, will expand science-based training at VESR for students at both the K-12 and university levels, and be a major boon to world-class researchers from across the UC system who pursue and apply their science in the Sierra. It also will enhance knowledge and strategies for land managers and stewards in the region and, ultimately, Blanchette added, “improve prosperity and success for the communities of the Eastern Sierra.”
“This gift is going to have a huge impact,” she said. “It’s going to enable us to do so many things that we want to do. And importantly, because it’s following on the heels of our strategic planning process, it will allow us to do things that have been well-informed by a broad array of users, stakeholders and community members. The MacFarlanes are people that have invested in other entities here in Mammoth and I think they really see that we are not working in isolation — we’re working with other groups in town. They’re also really interested in building community, and with a gift like this we can do that in a much bigger way.”
Published November 2019
We have such diversity in our ecosystems in the state and we have this reserve system to allow research into all of it. I’m very happy to be involved with such an engaged university system as the University of California.
Roger MacFarlane