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. None of the current family members lived on or used the ranch regularly. Aside from their collective goal to reduce or eliminate the ongoing ownership and management costs and responsibilities associated with the ranch, individual conservation and financial goals were neither fully-formed nor aligned. They asked us to identify the full range of available conservation options for the property, and design a conservation plan to achieve the goals of each individual landowner.
Our conservation planning and transactional work for these landowners included:
- Planning. Our assessment of the conservation values associated with the ranch, and the threats to the future protection of those values, involved a comprehensive evaluation of the ranch's specific biological, open space, agricultural, and recreational characteristics. We drew from a wide range of information and data sources, including on-site investigations of the property, and interviews with biologists and conservationists familiar with the property and region.
- Strategy. From this assessment, we developed an array of conservation strategies, projects and transactions to protect the conservation values of the ranch while at the same time achieving each landowner's individual goals. These included sales, bargain sales, donations of the fee interests, and donations of conservation easements to non-profit conservation organizations or public agencies. It also included a sale of the fee interest to a private conservation buyer, subject to a conservation easement that would be either purchased by or donated to a non-profit conservation organization or public agency.
- Transaction. Based on our analysis, the landowners pursued the donation of a conservation easement to a specific non-profit, and the subsequent resale of the easement-encumbered property to a conservation buyer. We represented the landowners in preliminary discussions and negotiations, and remained available to draft, review, and negotiate other documents for both the conservation easement and subsequent conservation buyer transaction.