About Us
The American River Conservancy is a non-profit, conservation organization headquartered in Coloma, California. Currently, the Conservancy has seven permanent staff members and a membership and volunteer base primarily located in El Dorado, Sacramento, Placer and Amador Counties. The Conservancy is the only local organization working within the private market system to acquire open space from willing sellers. To date, the Conservancy has protected over 9,303 acres of fisheries, wildlife habitat, recreational lands and scenic vistas in El Dorado and Amador Counties. Since it’s beginning in 1989, the Conservancy has provided meaningful, hands-on environmental education programs to over 70,000 children and adults through outreach programs to area schools and through the operation of the American River Nature Center within the Marshall Gold State Park in Coloma. The Conservancy also coordinates stewardship programs focused on monitoring water quality in local streams and rivers and enhancing endangered species habitat. Through its focus on land and river protection, public and youth environmental education and land stewardship, the Conservancy continues to provide vital ecological services to the people who call the eastern Sacramento area “home”.
The American River Conservancy was founded in 1989 by concerned citizens and residents to protect fisheries, wildlife habitat and recreational lands within the American River watershed upstream of Folsom Lake. The Conservancy completed its first acquisition in 1990 by acquiring 40 acres of spawning gravels used by rainbow trout and other native fishes at the confluence of Weber Creek and the South Fork American River immediately upstream of Folsom Lake. Initially, called the American River Land Trust, the organization became the American River Conservancy in 1995.
Over time the Conservancy’s conservation mission has expanded to include the protection of fisheries and wildlife habitat in the Upper Cosumnes River Watershed, the protection of a unique community of rare plants within the Pine Hill Ecological Preserve in western El Dorado County and a habitat enhancement project designed to stabilize and expand populations of the California red-legged frog found east of Placerville.
