Hearst Deal is Not Final
Until Agencies Approve Funding

 

Note: This article was printed in the Telegram Tribune on November 10, 2003. It has been reprinted with the permission of Liz Scott-Graham. It is intended to give view on how important the "Hearst Ranch Conservation Project" is, and discuss the process it must go through. Other than providing this news related article for this Web Liz Scott-Graham has no connection to the information published on this Web Site.

By Liz Scott-Graham

November 9, 2003

The Nov. 7th Viewpoint signed by representatives of the Environmental Defense Center, Sierra Club, ECOSLO, etc. is not a viewpoint shared by many conservationists in San Luis Obispo County and around the country.

The authors of the Viewpoint OP Ed piece seem to be highly agitated about the process but they don’t seem to understand the process very well. I hope that I might provide some clarification.

For many years I worked to protect California’s farms and ranches as a staff member of a national farmland protection nonprofit. I also help found two Sierra Foothill land trusts that negotiated a number of farm and ranchland conservation easements.

As such I am thoroughly familiar with the process of creating farm/ranch land conservation easements. Several factors are of utmost importance in understanding this process.

Number 1. Landowners choose freely to decide whether or not they want to be willing sellers of their land or of conservation easements. There is no obligation to begin or complete negotiations.

Number 2. The PROCESS OF NEGOTIATING easements is always a private process.

Number 3. If public monies are to be expended in purchasing an easement the agency dispensing the money releases the terms and conditions of the easement to the public and then holds publicly noticed hearings to obtain public input prior to deciding if the proposed agreement should be modified, accepted or rejected.

It is critical to understand this process before criticizing it. I do not believe that there is an agricultural conservation easement in existence that involved the public in the process of the negotiations between the landowner and the land trust.

To ask that the public be involved in negotiations is not only unrealistic it doesn’t make sense.
Who would be the people that would carry out the “public involvement?”
How would those people be chosen?
What would be their “marching orders?

The American Land Conservancy’s website (www.alcnet.org) lists a number of specific terms of the proposed agreement. Many of the details that seem to be of concern have already been answered in one forum or another. Also, see www.hearstranchconservation.org.

The public will know what it is buying and what it is paying. The public will review the proposal between the owners and the ALC when the proposal is submitted to public agencies and the agencies put the matter on their agendas FOR PUBLIC INPUT AND DELIBERATION.

To jeopardize a conservation project of this national significance and magnitude by asking the Hearst Corporation to allow others to participate in crafting this deal should hang heavy on the hands of the authors of the Nov. 7th Opinion Piece.

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Since 1969 Liz Scott-Graham has led many local conservation efforts in San Luis Obispo County. In 1971, she organized the successful effort to stop the 101 By-Pass Freeway slated for the hillsides of the Morros from the Madonna Inn to Cuesta College. She was a founding director of ECOLSO. As President of The People for A Nipomo Dunes, she led the effort to stop three harbors proposed for the Guadalupe- Nipomo Dunes and spearheaded the raising of $14 million to protect the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes. Most recently she succeeded in leading a project to raise an $8 million permanent endowment for Dunes habitat restoration.