| Nita Vail's story,
like any good Western narrative, is part fairy tale,
part tragedy, with a moral and a happy ending to boot.
The fairy tale part of her story involved
the joys and challenges of ranching on a large, scenic,
family-owned island off the coast of southern California.
The tale turns tragic, however, when this idyll came
to an unexpected, and angry, end.
Her tale is also emblematic of a larger
story about the West. About what has not worked well
in the past, and what is now beginning to, which is
where the moral, and happy ending, come in.
Perhaps the best place to start this particular
narrative is at its end.
Today, Nita Vail is the executive director
of the California Rangeland Trust, a nonprofit organization
with ranchers on the board of directors working to voluntarily
acquire and hold conservation easements for ranch families.
Energetic, personable, and effective, Vail
has led the seven-year old land trust from its humble
beginnings to its current status as one the major land
trusts in the state.
In a way, the California Rangeland Trust
(CRT) is enjoying is own fairy tale.
Of approximately 200 land trusts in California,
the CRT, headquartered in Sacramento, is the only one
focused exclusively on ranches and rangeland conservation.
It currently has 173,000 acres under easement
statewide, and more than 500,000 acres represented in
application – a massive amount of work to handle
with their current staff and budget.
“We were lucky,“ recalled Vail. “We got
our first easement right out of the chute. That gave
us credibility and created trust which was important
given the general attitude towards conservation easements
at the time.“
The CRT was created in 1997 by the California
Cattleman's Association, the industry's professional
organization. The decision overcame internal opposition
among members.
Around the West today, many state Cattleman's
Associations still have not formed their own rancher-led
land trust. The reasons are multiple, including a fear
of governmental intrusion and a concern for diminished
private property rights.
But Colorado ranchers bucked the trend by
establishing their own statewide land trust in 1995,
blessed by the statewide Association. Called the Colorado
Cattleman's Agricultural Land Trust, it proved to be
an inspiration for their friends in the Golden State.
“Times were tough,“ said Vail. "Markets
were poor and pressures to develop were building on
all sides. Also, generational succession is one of the
great challenges facing California's ranchers. We saw
what was happening in Colorado and decided it was time
to take charge of our own destiny."
What Works
Conservation easements began in the mid-1970s
in New York's Suffolk County and protect nearly five
million acres nationwide. Many of these acres are controlled
by nonprofit conservation organizations, such as The
Nature Conservancy, but the trend in recent years has
been toward the creation of local land trusts, including
those controlled by ranchers and farmers.
What is an easement and why would a rancher
place one on his or her land?
According to CRT, a conservation easement
is a legally recorded agreement between the landowner
and a land trust that restricts the land to agricultural
and open space uses and thus becomes a “voluntary solution
to agricultural land preservation."
Development rights are extinguished by the
easement and cannot be sold or transferred to another
entity. The value of a conservation easement is the
difference between the appraised value of the land without
any restrictions and the appraised value of the land
after the restrictions of the easement are recorded.
According to CRT, the financial benefits
of easements are multiple: "The landowner may be
entitled to a charitable tax deduction if the easement
is donated; a conservation easement can lower the taxable
value of the land for estate tax purposes; person inheriting
qualifying property may take an after-death donation
of a conservation easement and receive estate tax benefits;
and a conservation easement may lower real property
taxes."
Conservation easements restrict development
rights from a property, nothing else. They should not
interfere with the day-to-day work of the ranch. The
property owner still owns title to the land, can limit
access (even though money used for the transaction may
be public), and may still donate, sell, or transfer
the property as he or she sees fit.
The property's development rights are sold
to a land trust, such as CRT, who holds them “in perpetuity."
CRT works closely with the landowner and often handles
the entire transaction. The trust prepares all the documentation
and processes the paperwork, and obtains the funding,
if necessary.
The landowner must obtain an appraisal and
any necessary tax and legal advice. The whole process
can take as little as two months to complete, or as
long as two years, depending on the nature of the easement.
"... some of the criticism
– Nita Vail, executive
director,
California Rangeland Trust
Once a land trust accepts an easement it
takes on the responsibility of monitoring to make sure
the landowner is complying with the terms of the agreement.
More Benefits
For Nita Vail, the principal value of conservation
easements is simple: it keeps families on the land.
"Open rangeland is best protected by
the ranchers who make their living from it," she
said. "An easement allows the landowner to receive
compensation for the open space values his or her property
provides but still maintains it as a working landscape."
If society values open space, then easements
can be an important tool for its protection.
“Easements cost less than buying the land
outright," said Vail. “They're cheaper to maintain
because the landowner takes care of the property, and
the property remains on the county tax rolls.
Vail noted that there are good reasons why
a rancher should consider an easement:
1) it puts the landowner
in control of the estate planning;
2) it can reduce crippling debt;
3) it allows for long-term planning
by making the ranch more affordable to run; and
4) it reduces uncertainty,
especially for those families that don't want to break
up the ranch.
Of all the reasons to do a conservation
easement, however, it is this last one – the desire
to keep the land whole and in agriculture – that
seems to motivate most ranchers. But this also creates
a great of pressure on land trusts to be pragmatic and
successful.
"We're promising 'in perpetuity' so
we need to be business-driven, not just mission driven,"
said Vail, “That means being entrepreneurial. My board
is very business-minded."
"Easements aren't for everyone,"
she continued. "Some of the language in the agreements
is draconian, so you've got to be careful. And some
of the criticism of easements is legitimate, but people
forget that doing an easement is a property right too."
Vail points out that land trusts have another
important role: they help the land.
Ranch families own or manage 22 million
acres of private land in California. By 2040, it is
estimated that the state's' population will swell to
50 million people. That means more pressure to build
subdivisions, strip malls, and freeways on private land.
That means more pressure on ranchers and farmers to
sell out.
And once this Humpty Dumpty falls off its
wall, all the King's men will not be able to put him
back together again.
According to CRT, the ecological benefits
of protecting ranchlands include:
• Virtually all water consumed
in California flows over rangelands at some point.
• Private land provides critical wildlife habitat.
• 95% of all threatened and endangered species
in California are found to some degree on private
ranchlands.
• Well-managed rangelands are an ecological
asset (stewardship).
• A conservation organization doesn't have to
buy the land!
Nevertheless, easements remain a contentious
issue with some environmental organizations. A recent
CRT agreement with the 80,000-acre Hearst Ranch, home
to the famous Hearst Castle, generated sparks when the
Sierra Club and other organizations complained that
the public was not getting enough access to the property
under the terms of the deal (which used state money).
The Hearst Ranch refused to allow increased
access, saying it was a working ranch, not a public
park – a position strongly supported by many other
private landowners in the state, who were watching events
closely.
In the end, the CRT and the Hearst Ranch
won out, though some bitterness remains. Nita Vail senses
some environmentalists are wary of the trust because
they consider it to be an example of "fox guarding
the henhouse."
"Our organization is put under a microscope
probably more so than organizations that have strictly
an environmental purpose," she said. "When
in fact we all want to do the same thing – protect
the landscape. We are just trying to do it in a way
that also makes economic sense."
"They want the state to have a larger
role." she continued. "But what environmentalists
don't understand is that you can't police stewardship,
you have to nurture it."
Vail thinks this attitude is an example
of how private land stewardship is undervalued in the
West.
It is an issue that strikes uncomfortably
close to home. If conservation easements had existed
twenty years ago, her family's fairy tale might have
had a happy ending. too.
Cowboy Island
Once upon a time, the Vail family owned
Santa Rosa Island, part of the Channel Island group,
off the coast of Santa Barbara. Nita's great grandfather,
part of a ranching family with roots reaching to southern
Arizona, purchased the 54,000-acre island in 1901.
"Ranchers love wildlife
– Nita Vail
The rhythms of ranch life remained unchanged
until 1979, when Congress decided to expand the Channel
Islands National Park to include Santa Rosa. The park
had been created with the support of the Carter Administration
and the urging of many environmental groups, who were
concern about rare plants and animals.
The Vail family tried to get their island
exempted from the park, arguing that their progressive
management provided proper protection to the whole island,
but they could not find political allies to listen to
them at the time.
"The question that we asked but nobody
answered was: protection from what?" said Vail.
"It felt like, from us."
The Vail family was commended for their
stewardship, which is one of the reasons, Nita Vail
noted, that the government wanted their land in the
first place. The Vails were holistic managers before
it had a name. Then there is the issue of the Island
Fox, a species native to the island, and one of the
arguments for its "protection."
"The fox was fine until the Park Service
showed up," Vail said, "now it's in trouble.
Ranchers love wildlife and would have done anything
to help, but this is something the agencies still don't
understand."
Staying on their land was not an option
at the time. So they sold the ranch to the government
in 1986, brokering a deal that allowed them to stay
until 2011.
The deal was broken, said Vail, when Park
Service biologists inventoried the ranch and discovered
that several species of plants and animals were in danger
of extermination, in their opinion. The biologists argued
that livestock production had to end, pronto. When the
Vail family resisted, an environmental organization
sued.
The handwriting was on the wall. Vail, who
was in college at the time, wishes the family could
have fought harder and achieved a better outcome for
the ranch. Her father never wanted to develop the property,
and conservation easements were not an option at the
time.
The "protection" paradigm of the
era was set against the Vail family.
"The 1916 Organic Act of the National
Park Service contains an inherent contradiction which
was played out on our island," said Vail. "Going
back to pre-European landscapes and increasing public
access seem incompatible."
The last cattle drive took place in 1998,
memorialized in Gretel Erlich's book "Cowboy Island"[Santa
Cruz Island Foundation, 2000]. The whole experience
proved to be a painful lesson for Nita Vail, who was
motivated to devote her life to keeping ranch families
on the land.
"Not enough credit is given today for
good stewardship," she said. "The Park Service
is not holistic. The ecological condition of the island
is awful now, but no one talks about the grasses, all
they can do is focus on the fox, which are being eaten
by eagles."
"We should have demanded NEPA on the
cattle removal," said Vail. "That would have
opened eyes."
Things have changed since 1998. A progressive
ranching movement has emerged; land health protocols
have given a clearer picture of what ecological function
means; old conceptions of what "protection"
means have eroded; new tools and options for land management
and conservation have emerged; and the issue of sustainable
use and stewardship across public and private land has
come to the fore.
Still, the moral of this story remains difficult
for Vail to accept.
"We need to remember where we have
come from and go forward in a positive way," she
said. "We can't stay stuck in the past."
|
Courtney White writes