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Yosemite Launches Major Meadow Restoration Project
Confirmed
In Short: Yosemite National Park is undertaking a significant restoration project at Ackerson Meadow to revive its ecological functions and biodiversity.
Ackerson Meadow, one of the largest publicly owned mid-elevation meadows in the Sierra Nevada, is undergoing a major restoration project to preserve its ecological functions and biodiversity.
The project, which began in 2023, aims to restore the wetland habitat and address the degradation caused by historical land-use activities such as ditching, roadbuilding, agriculture, and grazing.
Park officials announced that in 2025, staff will plant 297,000 additional container plants on the newly restored channel surface.
Frank Dean, president of the Yosemite Conservancy, emphasized the meadow's significance, stating, 'It’s an amazing location, with amazing resources. This meadow is a rare oasis in the Sierra.'
The restoration project involves filling in massive amounts of erosion, including a 3-mile long gully that is 14 feet deep and 100 feet wide, with hundreds of truckloads of dirt and mulch.
The project will also plant 425,000 native plants and more than 700 pounds of wildflower seeds to create ideal wet meadow habitat for species like the endangered little willow flycatcher.
Ackerson Meadow is home to a wide range of native bird, plant, and fish species, and is a critical biodiversity hotspot and wildlife corridor.
The project is expected to enhance the ecosystem of the Sierra Nevada by restoring natural conditions not seen in the meadow since before the 1880s.
The restoration work will use 150,000 cubic yards of soil, equivalent to about 15,000 dump truck loads, to raise the streambed and water table, reconnecting the meadow floodplain to slow and spread flows across the meadow.
The project is a significant effort to preserve and restore the wetland, and it is the largest ‘full fill’ meadow restoration attempted in the Sierra Nevada to date.
The project is funded in part by the Yosemite Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land, and it exemplifies the benefits of a dedicated partnership.
Scott Gediman, Yosemite spokesman, noted, 'Ackerson Meadow is a regionally critical wildlife corridor that supports an amazing amount of biodiversity.'
What's confirmed
- Ackerson Meadow, one of the largest publicly owned mid-elevation meadows in the Sierra Nevada, is undergoing a major restoration project to preserve its ecological functions and biodiversity.
- The project, which began in 2023, aims to restore the wetland habitat and address the degradation caused by historical land-use activities such as ditching, roadbuilding, agriculture, and grazing.
- Park officials announced that in 2025, staff will plant 297,000 additional container plants on the newly restored channel surface.
- The restoration project involves filling in massive amounts of erosion, including a 3-mile long gully that is 14 feet deep and 100 feet wide, with hundreds of truckloads of dirt and mulch.
- The project will also plant 425,000 native plants and more than 700 pounds of wildflower seeds to create ideal wet meadow habitat for species like the endangered little willow flycatcher.
- Ackerson Meadow is home to a wide range of native bird, plant, and fish species, and is a critical biodiversity hotspot and wildlife corridor.
- The project is expected to enhance the ecosystem of the Sierra Nevada by restoring natural conditions not seen in the meadow since before the 1880s.
- The restoration work will use 150,000 cubic yards of soil, equivalent to about 15,000 dump truck loads, to raise the streambed and water table, reconnecting the meadow floodplain to slow and spread flows across the meadow.
- The project is a significant effort to preserve and restore the wetland, and it is the largest ‘full fill’ meadow restoration attempted in the Sierra Nevada to date.
- The project is funded in part by the Yosemite Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land, and it exemplifies the benefits of a dedicated partnership.
What's still developing
- Restoring Ackerson Meadow will also provide multiple benefits for climate resiliency, water quality and supply, flood attenuation, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity.
- Ackerson Meadow in Yosemite National Park and Stanislaus National Forest is one of the most significant biodiversity hotspots in the Sierra Nevada mountain range Your gift to American Rivers will power our work to make every river clean and healthy for people and wildlife.
- Workers are making progress this summer on an ambitious plan to turn a 400-acre property that was used for generations as a cattle pasture back into a healthy Sierra Nevada meadow.
- The work, by crews overseen by Yosemite officials, began last year and is scheduled to finish next summer.
- The goal is to restore natural conditions not seen in the scenic meadow between Yosemite’s Big Oak Flat entrance station and Hetch Hetchy Reservoir since before the 1880s, when cattle grazing, logging and homesteading began there.
- “To have that accessible by everyone to me is just a great thing,” he said.
- “That will no longer happen,” he said at the time.
- “During the westward expansion of our country, a lot of homesteaders and businesses looked at meadows like this as a place to build and settle,” said Guillermo Rodriguez, California director of the Trust for Public Land.
- “This meadow has been actively used for decades upon decades,” he said.
- Yosemite National Park is famous for towering waterfalls, giant sequoia trees and massive granite cliffs.
- Perched on the boundary of Yosemite and Stanislaus National Forest, it remained in private hands for more than a century.
- “It was incredibly fortuitous when the private landowner expressed interest in selling the property with the possibility of permanently protecting it,” said Matt Freitas, Director, California Headwaters Conservation for American Rivers, the nonprofit that spearheaded the due diligence behind the purchase.