Episode Summary:

What happens when you unplug a teenager, hand them a shovel, and send them into the backcountry for five weeks? You just might help grow the next generation of forest stewards.

In this episode of Sierra Rec Now, host Charlie Pankey speaks with Jonathan Kusel and Ariana Bernstein from the Sierra Institute for Community and Environment, a powerful nonprofit based in Taylorsville, CA. The Sierra Institute has spent more than 25 years linking healthy forests to healthy rural communities.

From post-Dixie Fire restoration to innovative wood utilization projects and landscape-wide partnerships, they’re helping rethink how we manage our public lands.

But the heart of this conversation is their transformative P-CREW Youth Corps—a wilderness-based summer program that takes 16–18-year-olds from across California and immerses them in real-world conservation. The teens live off-grid, work with Forest Service biologists, partner with tribal mentors, and come home changed.

Charlie and his guests explore the deeper impacts of wildfire, the importance of clean headwaters like the Feather River, and why collaborative land stewardship is more urgent than ever.

In this episode:

• What the P-CREW Youth Program actually looks like

• How teens gain confidence, job skills, and forest wisdom

• The legacy of the Dixie Fire and how the Sierra Institute is responding

• Tribal partnerships and cultural restoration in the Northern Sierra

• Why healthy forests = healthy communities

• How to support or get involved with Sierra Institute’s work

🟢 Learn more & support their work: https://sierrainstitute.us

📬 Subscribe to Sierra Rec Now for more trail-tested stories, local insights, and outdoor voices from the Sierra Nevada.

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