Lawsuits by Environmental Groups Force Closure of 12 California Ranches, Biden Admin Signs Off
A buyout will shut down half the dairies in Marin County and end 150 years of farming and ranching on Point Reyes National Seashore.
After years of lawsuits by environmental groups, the last remaining farms on Point Reyes National Seashore are set to close in a forced buyout. The farmers have been under a gag order for years, unable to speak about the betrayal they have experienced at the hands of government and former allies.
Point Reyes rancher Kevin Lunny told the Petaluma Argus-Courier:
“Last night, I came home after the press release went out, and after I got a call that said, ‘Everybody signed, everything’s done. The Justice Department signed.’ And I came in to tell my 94-year-old dad, and he was expecting this as we all were, but as I’m trying to tell him, suddenly I’m in tears. And then he starts crying. We’re both just weeping, and we haven’t even said any words yet. It’s just a complete breakdown. He knew, I didn’t have to say what I needed to say. He already knew.”
This decision to remove the generational stewardship of ag families will transform the historic California community into an abandoned wind-swept peninsula, its vacant farm village a cute tourist destination and photo op for Bay Area urbanites.
“This is a profound loss to Marin County agriculture and our community,” the Marin County Agricultural Land Trust (MALT) said in a statement.
Environmentalists are celebrating.
“The National Park Service will now have the opportunity to manage the natural and cultural resources of the Seashore — as they should have been doing, provided adequate funding is available,” Woody Elliott, a local activist, told The San Jose Mercury News.
For over 150 years, dairymen and ranchers have operated on the point. There are only a handful left. Two ranches will stay operational. Twelve farms and dairies must shut down within 15 months. This includes half the dairies in Marin County.
Over 16,000 acres of former ag land will be rezoned as a “Scenic Landscape Zone.”
Special interest groups suing the park claim the farms were destroying the ecosystem and watershed and damaging tule elk habitat.
In 2022, the Nature Conservancy—one of the largest private conservation groups in the world with over $1 billion in its annual budget—joined settlement talks to broker an agreement between the parties.
“It is extraordinary to have this restoration opportunity within the only national seashore on the West Coast,” Michael Bell, director of protection at The Nature Conservancy, told The San Jose Mercury News. “It could be quite a platform for science and monitoring—and create an awesome opportunity for the expansion of that learning beyond the national seashore.”
The Nature Conservancy has been actively trying to raise money for a Point Reyes buyout for years. The organization hosted high-dollar donor dinners asking for $40 million in funds to remove farmers from the peninsula. The events—billed as “intimate conservations about the future of Point Reyes”—were hosted by tech and venture capitalists at their expensive Marin County mansions and catered by private chefs, according to reporting by The Press Democrat.
Government groups seemed anxious to close the deal before President Trump’s inauguration in just over a week, which will usher in new leadership at the Department of Interior and the National Park Service.
The era of farming on Point Reyes, older than the state of California itself, is over.
End of an Era in California
Ranching on Point Reyes began soon after the Spanish mission days. The Mexican government awarded land grants along the coast to soldiers in the Mexican army and European supporters. After the Gold Rush, farmers began operating dairies and creameries to serve the burgeoning San Francisco population some 30 miles away.
In the mid-1800s, wealthy San Francisco landowners James and Oscar Shafter cordoned the land into 30 dairies named by letters of the alphabet—from A Ranch near the lighthouse to Z Ranch by the Mt. Wittenberg peak. Their tenants were immigrants from the Azores, Ireland, and Switzerland. Eventually they bought the ranches and dairies.
By the 1950s, in an effort to protect the land from encroaching development, ranchers cautiously partnered with environmentalists in their efforts to create a park on the point. Congress built a long-term plan designed to both protect farming in Point Reyes and keep the land undeveloped. Ranchers would sell their land to the government and agree to long-term leases.
By the time those lease agreements expired, the environmentalist attitude toward farming had changed. They now took a hostile position toward the ranchers, who were awarded a 20-year lease in a 2021 agreement with the National Park Service. The environmental groups promptly sued.
These groups included the Center for Biological Diversity, the Resource Renewal Institute, and Western Watersheds Project.
There are 300 homes, barns, and other farm buildings on the point, many included on the National Register of Historic Places. It is not known what will happen to these buildings; some may be demolished, others used as employee housing. Operations for the park or related to The Nature Conservancy may also operate out of the gutted farm buildings.
Farming families, many of whom have been on the land for generations, have about 15 months to get out.
The park has planned new camping opportunities, parking areas, and educational experiences for visitors.
Huffman to Host Town Hall on Point Reyes, Saturday
Congressman Jared Huffman was instrumental in the agreement. He plans to host a triumphant town hall at the Dance Palace in Point Reyes Station on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. to take questions and give the public more information about the new agreement.
List of Affected Ranches
According to the Petaluma Argus-Courier, six beef cattle ranches are closing:
E Ranch, Nunes family
G Ranch, Lunny family
H Ranch, Julie Evans-Rossotti
F Ranch, Gallagher family
M Ranch, Grossi family
N Ranch and Home Ranch, Lucchesi family
Six dairies or former dairies are closing, owned by the following families:
A Ranch, Nunes family
B Ranch, Mendoza family
C Ranch, Spaletta family
J Ranch, Kehoe family
L Ranch, McClelland family
I Ranch, McClure family
Two ranches were not involved in the agreement and will remain in operation: the D. Rogers Ranch, which includes K Ranch and AT&T Ranch, managed by Dave Evans, and the Commonweal grazing allotment near Bolinas, managed by Bill Niman.
The amount agreed to in the settlement is undisclosed though some estimate around $30 million in total for all the affected families.
Park officials and The Nature Conservancy are in talks to bring in grazing contractors to help manage the land and mitigate fire risk.
Another example of the extreme environmentalists taking over something that is good and then go about destroying all to save some animal that doesn’t need saving. It’s been coexisting there for decades with the farmers. This is exactly what is wrong with the state of California allowing environmental regulations and environmentalists to destroy our state. We will now have another fire hazard because they will not allow any type of maintenance. And the farmers who have farmed there forever have lost there properties and livelihoods. So sad destruction of a great state!
The fact that the farmers/ranchers were “under a gag order” tells me everything I need to know. This was jammed down their throats. Meanwhile, environmental groups could get their side of the story out in fundraisers. Sheesh.