If one looks at a map of Arizona, one would see a big blob of National Forest which includes the Patagonia Mountains to the West, the Huachuca Mountains to the East, bordering on Mexico to the South, and extending North into the Canelo Hills almost to the town of Sonoita. It is usually colored green on the map—except for a large white rectangle extending from the Mexican border right up the middle. The white rectangle is the San Rafael Valley named after the original San Rafael de Zanja Spanish land grant. The white color indicates deeded property owned by people, as opposed to the green color indicating government property administered by the Forest Service.
The valley floor (the white rectangle) is a vast rolling prairie of native grasses, sparsely populated by trees and people. The headwaters of the Santa Cruz River are in the San Rafael Valley. The Santa Cruz flows south into Mexico, then turns back into the valley where it continues north eventually flowing (sometimes) through Tucson and beyond.
Ranching is the local industry in the valley. It has been so since the Spanish introduced cattle 300 years ago. Signs at the intersections of roadways are typically long lists of ranch names with arrows indicating a right or left turn.
During the environmental activism of the late seventies and early eighties, there were clear battle lines. Environmental absolutists saw developers, miners, and yes ranchers, as the bad guys. Many a young eco-warrior would declare the very presence of cows as a destructive force on the land, ruining water sources, and displacing native species. With tools in-hand, and a copy of Edward Abbey’s “The Monkey Wrench Gang” in their pockets, they would engage in “direct action” (vandalism) against the imagined evildoers.
Today’s eco-warriors have swapped the monkey wrench for the amicus brief and are doing their fighting in the courtroom.
There is no fighting in the San Rafael Valley. The ranchers there are both the users and the preservationists. It is not surprising that people take good care of that which they own. After 300 years of ranching, the valley is a beautiful, ecologically vibrant community that supports around 15 threatened or endangered species. It is a demonstration that commerce, in this case ranching, is not necessarily incompatible with environmentalism.
Jim Rorbaugh of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Tucson describes the role of the rancher in maintaining the balance of commerce and preservation that has been achieved there, “Right now we have that here with the ranching community that is really invested here economically and through their heart in protecting this and keeping it an open space…I think that they have an investment here that goes beyond money. That’s quite clear. People love the land out here, and it’s an easy place to love.”
It is nice that the San Rafael Valley has been sustained for the last few centuries, but what of the future? Mutual interests leading to voluntary relationships leads to a solution. There is a tool that is used by the Nature Conservancy and other preservation groups that fits well with ranching. A usage easement, or more specifically a conservation easement, is a contract between the landowner and the preservation group that restricts the use of the land. It may, for example, restrict development to ranching, but no more, and can last for many decades. The conservation organization wins because there will be no housing developments or other commercial activities eating up the open space, and the rancher wins because he gets some cash up front, the ranching culture is preserved, and in some cases the land value goes down providing a tax advantage. Over 80 percent of the private land in the San Rafael Valley is protected by such contracts.
This is called a win-win, all without going to war, vandalism, predatory lawsuits, SWAT Teams, or armored vehicles. Voluntary relationships and associations that lead to mutually beneficial agreements win. This is how a free society works.
This article appears in May 14-20, 2015.
The ranchers have NOT made the San Rafael an ecological paradise, as Mr. Hoffman fantacizes.
I’ve been in the San Rafael Valley numerous times, starting in the 1960s. Back then cows denuded much of the Valley to the detriment of wildlife and habitat.
I have not seen the Valley for some time now, so maybe the conservation easements have had some influence on how heavily the private land is presently grazed.
When I worked at Fort Huachuca’s Game Management Office In the late 1960s, I conducted a comparison study of available vegetation on Fort Huachuca, which had not been grazed for many years, to grazed land in the Canelo Hills. There was over ten times as much vegetation available on Post, compared to off Post. The trigger for that study was a significantly lower population of Mearns quail off Post, compared to on Post.
Cattle grazing has done more damage to wildlife populations and habitat on public land than many other uses, no matter how Mr. Hoffman spins it.
Since the vast majority of the land in the San Rafael is private, groups like the Nature Conservancy paying ranchers is THE reason that the degradation by cattle is not worse. It certainly is NOT the ranchers. Cattlemen poison, trap and shoot predators to the detriment of biological diversity.
Today’s lawsuits by environmental groups are wonderful tools to halt the degradation of public land by abusers, like the commercial livestock industry certainly is.
Jonathan Hoffman is mistaken to praise the grazers as stewards of ecological goodness. If left to the commercial livestock industry, public Federal land in the West would be transferred to the states for eventual liquidation and intensified abuse.
It is time to remove all cattle from all public land and give wildlife and habitat priority. The beef production from public land grazing is a very small portion of the beef production in the United States. More importantly, administering cattle grazing leases costs us taxpayers more than the grazing leases generate, because the livestock industry lobbies for lower than market grazing fees. This, combined with conservation easement purchases by the Nature Conservancy and other similar benign groups, promises to make our public lands much more supportive of wildlife populations.
Nature Conservancy is a real estate broker that removes land from the tax rolls and adds the tax burden right onto the backs of what taxpayers are left.
Ricardo Small, basing opinions on condition from 45-50 years ago. Understanding of the ecology and management of grasslands has advanced a bit since those days. I won’t bother with the tired arguments about the cost/benefits. We can all manipulate stats, the facts are on the ground. If the ecosystem is functioning that is what matters. Beat out over-grazed country will recover in a few years given a little moisture. Paved over, subdivided, built on rarely does.
“It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so.”
― Ronald Reagan