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May 2008
California Oak Report
Oaks Big Winners in Tejon Ranch Agreement
A development-conservation accord with the owners of the 270,000-acre Tejon Ranch, located in Kern and Los Angeles counties, has been reached after a year of intensive negotiations. Conservation organizations have agreed not to challenge proposed development on Tejon Ranch in exchange for preservation of almost 240,000 acres, an area almost equal in size to the city of Los Angeles. In return, the groups will not contest Tejon development of three projects totaling about 10 percent of the property.
Tejon oak habitats include 108,000 acres of lowland grasslands and oak savannas, 82,000 acres of closed canopy oak woodland, montane hardwood, and montane hardwood conifer communities on the northwest slope of the Tehachapi Mountains and 27,000 acres of oak woodland, chaparral and pinyon juniper habitats on the southeast slope of the Tehachapi. Montane hardwood refers to higher elevation oak habitats. Only Tejon’s Mountain Village project is expected to have significant oak habitat impacts and it will still be subject to oak woodlands mitigation under the California Environmental Quality Act.
The agreement calls for Tejon Ranch to place 178,000 acres in a conservation easement and provide an option for public purchase through existing bond funds of 62,000 additional acres: 49,000 acres to create a state park, 10,000 acres to realign the Pacific Crest Trail and the remainder serving for tours of sensitive habitat. A Tejon Ranch Conservancy will be created to manage the preserve in perpetuity, with Tejon providing about $800,000 annually for seven years to establish the conservancy. After seven years, management funds will be provided through transfer fees from the sale of residential properties.
COF works with each of the negotiating groups: Planning and Conservation League, Natural Resources Defense Council, Siera Club, Audubon, Endangered Habitats League. Thanks and congratulations to everyone involved in giving real meaning to the term "landscape-scale conservation."
The conservation of Tejon’s incomparable oak habitats and the 2004 preservation of Hearst Ranch’s 30,000 acres of dense blue/coast live oak woodlands means the largest privately owned contiguous oak woodlands remaining in Southern California have been perpetuated for future generations.
Vote No on Proposition 98 on June 3
It is very important this this measure be defeated because of its potential to devastate California Conservation.
Varian Ranch Note
A special project that COF began with its Estate Planning Workshops many years ago (funded by the Packard Foundation and the Great Valley Center) led to a 17,000-acre conservation easement being placed on the Varian Ranch in Parkfield - Diablo Range. After the initial contacts were made, COF turned the project over to the Trust for Public Land. It is very rewarding to see that positive stewardship is ongoing on this ranch by the owner and the community at large.
On the Farm: Rancher Plants for the Future
By Steven Knudsen, San Luis Obispo County Farm Bureau
Just off the paved road outside Parkfield lives a man who is planning and planting for the future.
One tree at a time and one season after another, Jack Varian has developed a passion for sustainability. If all goes as planned, his actions today will grow for the next 400 years.
Varian is planting valley oak trees, native to the Parkfield region, and has collected a team of specialists and volunteers to assist him in his pursuit of transforming his rural landscape on the more than 16,500 acres of the V6 Ranch into what he calls "a more environmentally friendly approach" to ranching.
On a clear day in February, about 60 volunteers from the San Luis Obispo Native Tree Committee, Cal Poly and local 4 H Clubs plus agricultural and community groups joined Varian, UC Cooperative Extension natural resources specialist Bill Tietje and UC Cooperative Extension oak regeneration expert Doug McCreary to plant 1,000 oak trees.
Acorns for the saplings were collected from a small grove of valley oak trees that grows behind Parkfield Elementary School. The students there, who attend kindergarten through grade six in one of the last one room schoolhouses in the state, collected about 3,500 acorns for Varian.
In October 2006, Varian took the acorns to Growing Grounds Farm in San Luis Obispo for sprouting. Growing Grounds, a nonprofit wholesale nursery operated by Transitions Mental Health Association, employs adults with mental illness at a living wage to grow and care for the plants.
Last October, one year later, Varian was shocked to discover the magnitude of growth, with nearly 2,500 valley oak trees sprouted and grown. "We selected 1,000 of the oak trees and donated the remainder back to the nursery," he said.
Back on the V6 Ranch, the volunteers formed into groups of three to plant the native saplings. First educated by Varian on 11 tips for growing oak trees and then instructed on the best way to plant them by McCreary, the groups spread out over a predetermined four mile stretch of property running back toward Parkfield.
"The volunteers did a lion's share of the work, planting nearly 850 trees in a single day," Varian said.
Each of the year old seedlings, planted in groups of three in a triangle shape into the soft soil, were encased in wire baskets to protect them from gophers.
Soil was prepared with a shovel and covered with weed cloth to prevent grasses that would choke out the small seedlings. The cluster planting then was surrounded by three recycled iron fence posts, collected by Varian, and encircled with hog wire to keep pests and critters away.
All told, more than 330 planting sites were completed, all in a line with 60 feet separating each planting. Trees now run along the road and the foothills of the valley.
"The trees should grow about three feet per year, under perfect conditions," Varian said. "We are going to do everything we can to ensure that these trees get what they need to prosper."
Funding for "1,000 Oaks Day" came, in part, from a grant by the Wildlife Conservation Board's Oak Woodland Conservation Act of 2001 and from the Natural Resource Conservation Service cost share Quality Incentives Program.
Next in the strategic plan is irrigation. Each tree will receive water from a PVC irrigation line installed at the end of winter. Varian has allocated two wells in which he will use solar power to pump water into micro sprinklers that can sustain the small trees through the hot summer months.
Long term plan
The project has been a long time coming. In 1990, Varian realized that he was not satisfied with the way the ranch was being run and took over management of the cattle and husbandry of the land.
During the past 18 years, he has focused heavily on transitioning the land back to its natural state by encouraging the growth of native grasses, willow and oak trees and by evaluating and reevaluating the impact his herd has on the land.
Paramount to Varian's long term goal of preserving the land for future generations was entering into a conservation easement with the Trust for Public Lands.
In April 2001, Varian sold his development rights to the trust, now held by the California Rangeland Trust. That contract consolidated the number of legal parcels on the land to one, thus preserving the agriculture land in perpetuity. By entering into the contract, Varian is able to focus on his long term goals to improve quality of the rangeland and enhance biodiversity on the ranch.
In 2000, Varian was the first to receive the Native Tree Committee of San Luis Obispo County Stewardship Award. The committee works to promote voluntary planting and conservation of native trees through education, propagation and stewardship.
"The most important crop on my land is scenery," Varian said. "As development pressures force more agriculture land to disappear, we have chosen to preserve the beauty so that others may enjoy it in the future; as our lands' beauty survives, so do we."
Varian credits his success in range management to an education in "holistic management practices" that includes intensive rotational grazing, improved water management, proper fencing and a passion for the environment.
"We believe that the whole world should be thinking seriously about greater sustainability," he said. "Our agriculture businesses and livelihoods depend on it."
Merchandise
Investigating the Oak Community by Kay Antúnez de Mayolo for the California Oak Foundation. A project-based curriculum designed to involve 4th through 8th grade students in activities that will develop their awareness, understanding and knowledge of the important role of oaks in the California landscape. 120 pages, paperback, $14.95, $13.46 members, plus local sales tax, shipping and handling.
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