Cultivating Open Spaces in Marin

Farming advocates want to preserve the ecosystem and also the food it produces

It was a warm day but there was a comfortable, cooling breeze on the the ridge as we looked out across the rocky, straw-colored hills of western Marin County, past woodlands, creeks, soaring turkey vultures, swooping hawks and a smattering of cows all the way to the coastal bluffs and the gleaming, blue ocean.

The panoramic view of thousands of square miles of rangeland and open space was a striking example of just how intricately woven farming and ranching is with environmental protection in Marin County. Much of the land we were looking at was agricultural land and great swaths of that has forever been protected from any kind of development that is not related to farming or ranching.

The organization responsible for protecting this land, and the families that own it, is the Marin Agricultural Land Trust. MALT, as it is known, is often forgotten in debates over land preservation, but the nonprofit trust has protected more than 55,500 acres, an area almost twice the size of San Francisco. It does that by purchasing conservation easements that forbid development but also by infusing desperately needed money into farming and ranching operations. MALT currently holds 93 conservation easements in Marin.

“When you protect agricultural land you also protect the land, the water, the wildlife, housing, jobs and the local economy,” said Lily Verdone, the executive director of MALT, who was hired in September 2022. “It's how to protect it as a whole ecosystem, as an economy, as a way of life.”

It is a philosophy that Verdone developed over the past quarter century working for the The Nature Conservancy and several land trusts, including the Oakland-based nonprofit Coastal Quest. But, at MALT, she walked into a turbulent situation. The nonprofit has endured a lot of turnover since the Covid pandemic. She is the third executive director at MALT since 2020. But more troubling to Verdone is the recent criticism leveled at the ranching community in Marin and Sonoma counties because of a controversy MALT has played no part in.

A recent management plan by the National Park Service called for limiting the wild tule elk population by killing surplus animals on the Point Reyes National Seashore. It was an attempt to preserve grassland for cattle on some 25,000 acres of park land in Marin and Sonoma counties leased to 24 private beef and dairy operations, but it created a furor among many environmentalists who claim killing native elk to protect non-native cows is anti-wildlife.

The ranchers and their defenders took a lot of heat despite the fact that many of the cattle operations are organic and have largely been responsible for putting Marin dairy products back among the culinary crème de la crème. Still, some conservationists would like to end all ranching on the seashore. MALT took major heat for supporting legislation that ensured private cattle ranching would continue there.

The battle is upsetting to Verdone, who emphasized that MALT does not own any conservation easements on the seashore. She said the elk controversy is “a really unfortunate and tricky issue.”

“MALT's position is that we support agriculture across Marin County and we want to support sustainable farming across the county and on the seashore,” Verdone said. “Because we are a land trust and not an advocacy organization, we tend to be in the neutral space of being solution oriented and bringing people together.”

As we stood on the ridge, I thought about how little of this open space would have existed had activists not prevented huge developments in what later became the Point Reyes National Seashore and GGNRA in the 1960's and 70's. Development pressure continued even after the parks were created. That’s why in 1980 dairy farmer Ellen Straus and environmentalist Phyllis Faber founded MALT, the first farmland trust in the nation. MALT now has conservation easements on more than half the agricultural land in Marin County.

We were, in fact, standing at the highest point on a 1,179-acre ranch owned by a family that is currently in negotiations with MALT. Family members told me the infusion of cash from the purchase of a conservation easement would allow them to repair fences, fix crumbling buildings and keep a cherished property that has been passed down through many generations.

It’s important, especially with global warming altering conditions across the country and changing where certain crops can be grown. California loses an estimated 50,000 acres of farmland every year for a variety of reasons. Climate change is likely to speed up that process.

After she was hired, Verdone quickly implemented policies she believed would improve relations and the reputation of MALT. She rolled out what she called the five "strategic pillars” that would drive MALT's future. Besides preserving agriculture, the pillars are to protect biodiversity, build climate resilience, connect to the community and grow and strengthen MALT as an organization.

Her plan is to provide incentives for farmers and ranchers to protect habitat corridors, wildlife species, soils, water systems and riparian areas. Verdone said dozens of small grants are being awarded for climate resilience projects on agricultural land where MALT holds conservation easements. Since April 2021, $916,000 in grants have been awarded for 75 water infrastructure projects under MALT's Drought Resilience And Water Security initiative, or DRAWS. She said MALT officials are planning numerous events, including story telling, in an attempt to foster better communication and improve relationships within the community.

“It is about how we can infuse support into farming and ranching and how we can bring in the next generation of farmers,” Verdone said. "We want to have more and more support and have more people understand that connection between agricultural land and local food and climate resilience.”

It felt like we were in the middle of a wilderness hundreds miles from civilization as we stood on that ridge looking out over the countryside, a landscape virtually unchanged from the way it was when European immigrants first came to Marin County. Keeping it that way will require the kind of adaptation and innovation MALT and the farmers and ranchers of Marin are now trying to implement.