Covering 240,000 acres of spectacular mountains, deserts, and valley floors, a “Ranch-wide Management Plan” will guide state-of-the-art ranching and wildlife conservation.

The Tejon Ranch straddles Los Angeles and Kern Counties. Its San Joaquin Valley prairie, Tehachapi Mountain woodlands, and Mojave desert scrub link the Coast Ranges to the Sierra Nevada. Its oak resources are staggering, along with wildflower fields and native grasslands. A 2008 “Ranch Agreement” between the Tejon Ranch Company and conservation groups including EHL set aside 90% of the property for protection while allowing continuing ranch activities under conservation easements. On the remaining 10% of the ranch, the Tejon Ranch Company is pursuing development through local government agencies.

The Tejon Ranch Conservancy was formed under the Agreement, with EHL serving as a board member. Using State funds, the Conservancy purchased 62,000 acres of conservation easements, which had been anticipated under the Agreement. The Conservancy has also received dedicated conservation easements over an additional 37,099 acres as the first of the much larger set of lands (145,000 acres) that will be conveyed without purchase.

The Conservancy quickly initiated an ambitious scientific research program, partly through the Bren School at UC Santa Barbara. Highlights include the development of conceptual ecological models, a fire management plan, and analysis of the ecology of the Ranch’s oak woodlands. A public access plan was also developed that has opened the property to the general public for the first time. On the development side, the 5,400-acre Tejon Mountain Village project, which is largely estate lots, was approved by Kern County and by the US Fish & Wildlife Service in the form of a Habitat Conservation Plan for condors and other species.

As mandated by the Agreement, Conservancy staff and team of experts prepared an extensive management blueprint (the Ranch-wide Management Plan) that seeks to integrate Ranch activities like cattle grazing and hunting with conservation purposes. For example, the plan wills keep cows out of streambeds, yet calls for the grazing of some areas more intensely, to reduce non-native grass cover and restore native wildflower blooms. Tejon Ranch Company’s hunting program (allowed under the conservation easements) will target feral pigs, which are the greatest cause of environmental degradation on the property. The plan will also seek to bring back the pronghorn and restore native grasses. This model for sustainable ranching will be revised at 5-year intervals. How many of its benefits are ultimately realized will depend on how much money can be raised beyond limited baseline revenues to implement specific restoration actions.

There were, of course, controversial issues like the existing practice of hunting of coyotes and other predators. The Conservancy Board – made up of conservation, Tejon Ranch Company and independent members – worked with the Company to substantially reduce these activities and to enact scientific data gathering that can inform and modify the program. The entire plan can be viewed at <http://www.tejonconservancy.org/rwmp.htm>.

We congratulate the Conservancy and its hard working pro bono law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher on the many accomplishments to date.