Guest Post: The Path to Perpetuity

Conservation easements are a powerful tool to protect land for the future. This blog, published on the Land Trust Alliance site, shares how another land trust used this tool to ensure land is protected. Bur Oak Land Trust also protects land with conservation easements. Contact Tammy Wright at info@buroaklandtrust.org for more information.

Sceirine Point Ranch is a breathtakingly beautiful working ranch in Bridgeport Valley, California. At 2,375 acres, this historic ranch benefits the Eastern Sierra economy and provides an important home for wildlife, such as mule deer and sage-grouse.

This is the largest conservation easement that the accredited Eastern Sierra Land Trust has ever completed, and it’s a big win for local conservation. Thanks to ranchers Joe and David Sceirine, the land trust’s funding partners — the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation (SALC) Program and California Deer Association — and supporters, these irrigated meadows will remain open and productive in the future, protected from the subdivision on the rise in the valley.

“We wanted to maintain our identity and preserve our lifestyle as cowboys and ranchers,” said David Sceirine. “It is my dream that three generations from now, Sceirine descendants not even born yet will be able to own and work this land to continue our family legacy.”

There is another important outcome to protecting this ranch. Using California Climate Investments assets, the state’s SALC Program helped fund the purchase of this easement to prevent emissions increases that result from developing farmland. Preventing drastic changes and maintaining the native grassland will avoid greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 45,637 metric tons of carbon, according to an analysis by the SALC Program of the first 30 years.

Originally published on the LTA blog.