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SACRAMENTO -- The
state of California has committed $6.5
million in funding to protect 4,235
acres of agricultural land supporting an
abundance of wildlife in Butte County.
With this project’s completion, nearly
the entire Llano Seco Ranch, an
18,434-acre Mexican Land Grant, will be
permanently shielded from development in
a fast-growing area of California.
“We’re very pleased with this project,”
said California Secretary for Resources
Mike Chrisman. “We’re providing a buffer
for habitat critical to several
special-status species, protecting
important agricultural land, and helping
to keep an organic cattle operation
working. Beyond that, we’re proud of the
cooperation between state and local
government and the landowners that made
this vision a reality.”
Of the 4,235 acres protected under this
easement, approximately 1,870 acres are
in intensely managed agricultural
production of walnuts, almonds, garbanzo
beans, sunflowers and other crops; 1,715
acres are used for grazing; and 736
acres are covered in sloughs and
riparian vegetation, including
grasslands, cottonwood, and Great Valley
oak riparian forests. Most of the
remainder of the ranch is already
shielded from development, having been
permanently sold in a combination of fee
and easement to the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, the Department of Fish
and Game, and the Nature Conservancy.
Funding for the project comes from the
Department of Fish and Game implementing
the CALFED Ecosystem Restoration Program
($2.57 million); the Wildlife
Conservation Board ($2.0 million); and
the Department of Conservation’s
California Farmland Conservancy Program
($1.93 million). The California Oak
Foundation (COF) and the Northern
California Regional Land Trust (NCRLT)
were the grant applicants, and NCRLT
will hold the easement.
The valley elderberry longhorn beetle,
winter run Chinook salmon, and
Swainson’s hawk are some of the species
with special status under the federal
and state Endangered Species Acts that
will be protected by the new easement.
Marshes on the ranch are habitat for
several flora species listed as rare and
endangered in Butte County by the
California Native Plant Society, such as
Ferris milk-vetch, rose mallow and fox
sedge.
The land in the easement area is part of
the historic Central Valley floodplains
of the Sacramento River and Little Butte
Creek, where present-day pastures and
fields surround a network of undulating
natural swales and channels filled with
groves of oak woodlands. The easement
will protect the natural topography and
seasonal flooding of this landscape. The
area is one of the valley’s best
surviving examples of “water management
without the levees”: a functioning
floodplain that still supports vast
seasonal and permanent wetlands,
watercourses, and forested habitats.
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