One family: Planning and unifying to protect the family ranch
Owners of a cattle ranch located in the California foothills sought our assistance in developing and implementing conservation strategies for their property. The several–thousand acre ranch had been in the family for generations and was used as both a working cattle ranch and a private hunting and recreational preserve by the family. While sharing the collective goal of protecting the property’s natural resource values and traditional ranching uses, the owners had not thought through the full range of conservation, financial, tax and estate issues associated with implementing that vision. They asked us to identify the full range of conservation options for the property, and design a plan to achieve the goals of each landowner.
Our conservation planning and transactional work for these landowners included:
- Planning. Our planning efforts began with a comprehensive evaluation of the ranch’s specific biological, open space, agricultural, and recreational characteristics, and the threats to the future protection of those values. We also surveyed the level and effectiveness of other conservation protection efforts in the region. We drew from a wide range of information, data, and mapping sources, including on-site investigations of the property, interviews with biologists and conservation experts familiar with the property and region, and consultation with tax and estate professionals with expertise in conservation projects.
- Strategy. From this assessment, we developed an array of conservation strategies, projects, and transactions to protect the conservation values and traditional uses of the ranch, and identified the range of business, tax and estate repercussions relating to the overall goals of each landowner. Strategies addressed sales, bargain sales, donations, and bequeaths of fee interests and conservation easements to nonprofit conservation organizations, public agencies, and conservation buyers, together with available public and private funding mechanisms.
- Transaction. Based on our analysis, the landowners pursued the donation of a conservation easement to a nonprofit we identified, and the subsequent resale of the easement-encumbered property to a conservation buyer. We represented the landowners in preliminary discussions and negotiations, and assisted with drafting, reviewing, and negotiating documents for both the conservation easement and subsequent conservation buyer transaction. We also worked directly with the landowners’ tax advisors, estate counsel, and accountant to ensure transaction documents and structure achieved identified tax and finance outcomes.