Protection racket
It's been pointed out to me that I don't post about my work very much. I like my job a lot. I divide most of my time between walking the land on farms and ranches and parks, and making maps and conservation plans. Pretty good. I'm not sure why I don't post a lot about work, I guess I don't figure most people on my list are terribly interested in observations about ranch life or different species of grasses or the status of the California tiger salamander.
Today I have a work post. One of the things we've been working on here is a mitigation easement program for private landowners. (If you're not familiar, mitigation is a feature of various environmental protection laws whereby if somebody is doing an activity, say, building a housing development, that is going to destroy habitat for a protected species, then they're required to mitigate that damage by paying to protect a greater amount of that habitat somewhere else nearby.) So we've been putting together a program to channel mitigation funding to ranchers who are providing good private land stewardship, so the money helps them afford to keep their land in habitat and ranching, rather than ending up sold off to development. It's one of those rare win-win situations and I really like being a contributor to the project.
Why are the ranches at risk of being sold? Because it's getting very hard to make ranching pay for the land here on the urban edge of the most expensive metropolis in California. Because the ranchers are getting pressure from every angle: regulators, developers, cities, counties, environmentalists, and the parks.
It's the parks I want to talk about today. We like parks: county parks, regional parks, state and national parks. Most of my friends are urban people who without the parks systems would have little access to "wild" lands for their weekend recreation. The parks give us a place to go and remember what Nature is for. We're glad to see some natural places protected by public ownership. And we start to think that public land equals protected land, and protected land equals public land, because that's most of what we see. When we go for a hike in one of these parks, maybe we don't wonder how it came to be in public ownership. Who owned it before. Who lived in that 19th century ranch house and raised their kids in it. What happened to that family that the land wound up deeded to the park.
Let me tell you a story about how some of these ranches end up becoming public land. I'm working with a rancher right now: let's call him Mr. Morgan. He's got a medium sized ranch and he's been running cattle on it his whole life. It used to be part of a bigger ranch that his grandfather founded in the 19th century, but over the years parts of it have been sold off and the neighborhoods are starting to creep in. Now he and his siblings own the remaining 400 acres together. It's a beautiful ranch; it's got grassland and lovely oak woodlands along the riparian corridors. It's got habitat for threatened California tiger salamanders, and red-legged frogs, and the Alameda whipsnake. It's right up next to a big regional park, and that's good for the wildlife too. Mr. Morgan does a good job managing the ranch, and he's glad the critters are there, as long as he can still work his cattle the way he needs to to make a living. He'd like to keep ranching it till he can't any more, and leave it to his kids. It's his heritage and his legacy.
The problem is, his siblings didn't go into ranching. They got city jobs and don't really care about the ranch any more, and now they want to sell their interests in the ranch and buy town houses. Mr. Morgan makes a living on the livestock, sort of, but he can't afford to buy his siblings out. But he doesn't want to sell the ranch either, so it's starting to be a struggle in his family.
Enter the park district. You see, they've had their eye on the ranch for some time. It's got great habitat, thanks to Mr. Morgan's stewardship, and it's right next to a park they'd like to expand. He's been telling them no for years, trying to keep it in the family. So the park district bided their time and waited for his siblings to get restless. And now they have spotted their moment and they slide in there and quietly make an offer to the siblings. The park district will buy their interest in the ranch for a nice, competitive price, take the problem off their hands. And then you know what happens? Then the park district has joint legal title with Mr. Morgan, and they can start telling him how to run the ranch. They can lock the gates, or cut off the water to the livestock, or put restrictions on cattle movements. Pretty soon Mr. Morgan's cattle business isn't doing so well. Pretty soon he gets in a tight corner: he can try taking it to court to get his access and use rights straightened out, if he can afford to take on the big, well-funded regional park district's lawyers... or he can start to reconsider just how important it is to him to keep ranching that land. Pretty soon he ends up selling, and then just to keep his living he ends up renting his family's land back from the park. Now he's paying them for the right to graze the land his grandfather passed down to him. And pretty soon the park district decides that they don't like his land management, even though it was his land management that kept all that nice threatened species habitat that made it attractive to the park in the first place; but they've got some big-shot PhD's on staff who don't agree with his methods. So now he has to change the way he grazes the land, or lose his grazing lease.
Eventually, he leaves the land his grandfather passed down to him. Maybe he gets a grazing lease somewhere else, or maybe he gets a job in town. He's out of the picture, in any case. The park district puts in some trails, lets the fences rot or takes them out, and puts up some interpretive signs. We come along and go for a hike and admire the beauty of nature and are glad there's still some habitat for these creatures, still some open space where we can come and be in nature. Thank goodness for parks. It's a good thing we're able to protect some land by putting it under public ownership.
I tell you this story not to put down the parks, or to say that public ownership is bad. I tell you this story because it is a true story, happening to a rancher right now who came to me in the hopes that my agency could help him gain recognition for the wildlife habitat he has maintained on his ranch, because getting some mitigation funding is the only thing standing between him and the park district forcing him off the land. Because the park district executives, like many other people who care about the environment, fundamentally believe that the only way to protect land is to get rid of private landowners and get it into public ownership. Because they are willing to get between him and his family and use their muscle and money to push him off the land. They didn't even tell him about the offer they made to his siblings. We found out about it because some park district representatives dropped enough hints at a meeting we were at, and because we happen to know Mr. Morgan's property and situation we were able to put two and two together and figure out what they're doing. You see, if they can secretly buy it out before he gets wind of it and gets the money together to do it himself, then they've got him where they want him. Game over. I've seen it happen before and it's happening again now. I tell you this story because it makes me incredibly angry to watch this happening in the name of wildlife conservation, and because I'm frustrated that nobody seems to know about the underhanded crap that goes on so we can have nice hiking trails. Because I want you to know that for every acre of land that some public agency is protecting for the benefit of native species, there are probably 10 more acres of land that some private rancher is caring for, and many of them are doing a much better job than the Sierra Club has led you to believe. And this is how we thank them for the continued existence of these threatened species. If the only protected land was public land, most of these species would already be gone.
Today I have a work post. One of the things we've been working on here is a mitigation easement program for private landowners. (If you're not familiar, mitigation is a feature of various environmental protection laws whereby if somebody is doing an activity, say, building a housing development, that is going to destroy habitat for a protected species, then they're required to mitigate that damage by paying to protect a greater amount of that habitat somewhere else nearby.) So we've been putting together a program to channel mitigation funding to ranchers who are providing good private land stewardship, so the money helps them afford to keep their land in habitat and ranching, rather than ending up sold off to development. It's one of those rare win-win situations and I really like being a contributor to the project.
Why are the ranches at risk of being sold? Because it's getting very hard to make ranching pay for the land here on the urban edge of the most expensive metropolis in California. Because the ranchers are getting pressure from every angle: regulators, developers, cities, counties, environmentalists, and the parks.
It's the parks I want to talk about today. We like parks: county parks, regional parks, state and national parks. Most of my friends are urban people who without the parks systems would have little access to "wild" lands for their weekend recreation. The parks give us a place to go and remember what Nature is for. We're glad to see some natural places protected by public ownership. And we start to think that public land equals protected land, and protected land equals public land, because that's most of what we see. When we go for a hike in one of these parks, maybe we don't wonder how it came to be in public ownership. Who owned it before. Who lived in that 19th century ranch house and raised their kids in it. What happened to that family that the land wound up deeded to the park.
Let me tell you a story about how some of these ranches end up becoming public land. I'm working with a rancher right now: let's call him Mr. Morgan. He's got a medium sized ranch and he's been running cattle on it his whole life. It used to be part of a bigger ranch that his grandfather founded in the 19th century, but over the years parts of it have been sold off and the neighborhoods are starting to creep in. Now he and his siblings own the remaining 400 acres together. It's a beautiful ranch; it's got grassland and lovely oak woodlands along the riparian corridors. It's got habitat for threatened California tiger salamanders, and red-legged frogs, and the Alameda whipsnake. It's right up next to a big regional park, and that's good for the wildlife too. Mr. Morgan does a good job managing the ranch, and he's glad the critters are there, as long as he can still work his cattle the way he needs to to make a living. He'd like to keep ranching it till he can't any more, and leave it to his kids. It's his heritage and his legacy.
The problem is, his siblings didn't go into ranching. They got city jobs and don't really care about the ranch any more, and now they want to sell their interests in the ranch and buy town houses. Mr. Morgan makes a living on the livestock, sort of, but he can't afford to buy his siblings out. But he doesn't want to sell the ranch either, so it's starting to be a struggle in his family.
Enter the park district. You see, they've had their eye on the ranch for some time. It's got great habitat, thanks to Mr. Morgan's stewardship, and it's right next to a park they'd like to expand. He's been telling them no for years, trying to keep it in the family. So the park district bided their time and waited for his siblings to get restless. And now they have spotted their moment and they slide in there and quietly make an offer to the siblings. The park district will buy their interest in the ranch for a nice, competitive price, take the problem off their hands. And then you know what happens? Then the park district has joint legal title with Mr. Morgan, and they can start telling him how to run the ranch. They can lock the gates, or cut off the water to the livestock, or put restrictions on cattle movements. Pretty soon Mr. Morgan's cattle business isn't doing so well. Pretty soon he gets in a tight corner: he can try taking it to court to get his access and use rights straightened out, if he can afford to take on the big, well-funded regional park district's lawyers... or he can start to reconsider just how important it is to him to keep ranching that land. Pretty soon he ends up selling, and then just to keep his living he ends up renting his family's land back from the park. Now he's paying them for the right to graze the land his grandfather passed down to him. And pretty soon the park district decides that they don't like his land management, even though it was his land management that kept all that nice threatened species habitat that made it attractive to the park in the first place; but they've got some big-shot PhD's on staff who don't agree with his methods. So now he has to change the way he grazes the land, or lose his grazing lease.
Eventually, he leaves the land his grandfather passed down to him. Maybe he gets a grazing lease somewhere else, or maybe he gets a job in town. He's out of the picture, in any case. The park district puts in some trails, lets the fences rot or takes them out, and puts up some interpretive signs. We come along and go for a hike and admire the beauty of nature and are glad there's still some habitat for these creatures, still some open space where we can come and be in nature. Thank goodness for parks. It's a good thing we're able to protect some land by putting it under public ownership.
I tell you this story not to put down the parks, or to say that public ownership is bad. I tell you this story because it is a true story, happening to a rancher right now who came to me in the hopes that my agency could help him gain recognition for the wildlife habitat he has maintained on his ranch, because getting some mitigation funding is the only thing standing between him and the park district forcing him off the land. Because the park district executives, like many other people who care about the environment, fundamentally believe that the only way to protect land is to get rid of private landowners and get it into public ownership. Because they are willing to get between him and his family and use their muscle and money to push him off the land. They didn't even tell him about the offer they made to his siblings. We found out about it because some park district representatives dropped enough hints at a meeting we were at, and because we happen to know Mr. Morgan's property and situation we were able to put two and two together and figure out what they're doing. You see, if they can secretly buy it out before he gets wind of it and gets the money together to do it himself, then they've got him where they want him. Game over. I've seen it happen before and it's happening again now. I tell you this story because it makes me incredibly angry to watch this happening in the name of wildlife conservation, and because I'm frustrated that nobody seems to know about the underhanded crap that goes on so we can have nice hiking trails. Because I want you to know that for every acre of land that some public agency is protecting for the benefit of native species, there are probably 10 more acres of land that some private rancher is caring for, and many of them are doing a much better job than the Sierra Club has led you to believe. And this is how we thank them for the continued existence of these threatened species. If the only protected land was public land, most of these species would already be gone.