For Immediate UseContact: Garrison Frost
June 24, 2008(323) 951-9620

Tejon Ranch, CA — An independent conservancy created to oversee the conservation of up to 240,000 acres of Southern California’s Tejon Ranch officially began its work by announcing its board of directors and outlining its priorities. The creation of the Tejon Ranch Conservancy was at the heart of last month’s historic agreement between conservation organizations and the Tejon Ranch Company.

“The challenge of crafting an agreement to protect 375 square miles of the Tejon Ranch was no small task, but now the real work begins,” said Graham Chisholm, director of conservation for Audubon California and the Conservancy’s inaugural chairman. “This will be conservation on an unprecedented scale, and it’s important that we hit the ground running.”

Chisholm added that in the coming months the Conservancy will be hiring staff, taking steps to inventory the Ranch’s incredible resources, identifying and launching projects to restore habitat, creating opportunities to get visitors out on the ground for hikes and campouts and beginning efforts to establish a State Park.

The Tejon Ranch Conservancy is an independent nonprofit organization that will manage conservation, restoration and public access across the vast and newly protected portions of the Tejon Ranch. In particular, it will be responsible for monitoring and enforcing a conservation easement across 178,000 acres of Tejon Ranch and working with the state of California and others to acquire an additional 62,000 acres. It will also develop and implement a long-term, science-based, stewardship plan to protect and restore habitat for the property’s endangered wildlife.

The agreement provides the Conservancy with long-term funding to protect the California Condor and dozens of other rare species, manage and restore oak woodlands, grasslands and stream-side sycamore, cottonwood and willow forests and help ensure that Californians will be able to enjoy the Tejon Ranch. 

While it will take some time to get the Conservancy fully up to speed, Chisholm specified that the he and the other board members hope to offer new public access programs on the Tejon Ranch as soon as feasibly possible.

In early May, five of California's leading environmental organizations — Sierra Club, Audubon California, Natural Resources Defense Council, Endangered Habitats League and the Planning and Conservation League — announced an unprecedented agreement with Tejon Ranch Company to conserve the vast majority of the Tejon Ranch for future generations. The 270,000-acre ranch, the largest contiguous private landholding in the state, is an invaluable piece of California's natural heritage and a hotspot of biological diversity at the confluence of four major ecological regions — the Sierra Nevada, Mojave Desert, Coastal Range and San Joaquin Valley. With landscapes ranging from native grasslands to Joshua tree woodlands to oak and fir forests, the ranch contains critical foraging habitat for the California condor and is home to over two-dozen other rare plant and animal species.

 “When you combine the richness of the Tejon Ranch landscape with the caliber of people coming together around its protection, it reaffirms what a special conservation opportunity we have before us.  I am honored to play a role in it,” said new board member Al Wright, the former executive director of the California Wildlife Conservation Board, who also earned a reputation for his ability to bring different interests together to protect California’s biodiversity during a long career with the Bureau of Land Management.

 “I have seen a lot of conservation partnerships in my time, and I can tell you that long-term funding for an independent conservancy is what makes the Tejon Ranch agreement truly exceptional,” Wright added.  

Chisholm also noted that the process of inventorying and mapping the property and developing specific restoration projects will be greatly informed by the addition of Dr. Frank Davis to the board. Dr. Davis is an ecologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, who brings the Conservancy a widely recognized expertise in landscape ecology and conservation biology, with a specific focus on protecting California chaparral and oak woodlands.

The Conservancy will also devise a plan for making the majority of the Ranch available for public enjoyment through educational programs and public access, including opportunities for docent led tours, hiking, camping, wildlife watching, fishing and hunting. Among the Conservancy’s top priorities in the first year will be the realignment of 37 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail on the ranch.

Tom Soto, another new board member who is a managing partner at Craton Equity Partners and a long-time Los Angeles civic and environmental leader, was enthusiastic about the public access opportunities that the agreement has made possible. “Tejon Ranch can provide kids from the wonderfully diverse communities in the densely populated Los Angeles area with a chance to experience nature’s greatest rewards without having to drive more than an hour away,” he said. “This, in and of itself, can help shape a new generation of conservation leaders.”

The Tejon Ranch Conservancy will be governed by a twelve-member board consisting of four members appointed by the five environmental organizations that were parties to the agreement and by four members appointed by Tejon Ranch Company. In addition, there will be four independent members, jointly appointed by the environmental groups and the company during the first three years and, after that by the Conservancy board. The Conservancy expects to hire experienced staff with expertise in land trust administration, conservation biology and open space land management.

While the recent conservation agreement provides for both start-up and long-term funding for the Conservancy, initial support is also coming from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

A list of board members and their affiliations are below:

• Graham Chisholm (Chair), Audubon California
• Frank Davis, Donald Bren School for the Environmental Science
  and Management at UCSB
• Jim Dodson, Sierra Club
• Gary Hunt, California Strategies
• Randall Lewis, Lewis Operating Corporation
• Roberta Marshall, Tejon Mountain Village
• Kathy Perkinson, Tejon Ranch Company
• Joel Reynolds, Natural Resources Defense Council
• Dan Silver, Endangered Habitats League
• Tom Soto, Craton Equity Partners
• Al Wright, formerly with the California Wildlife Conservation Board

About Audubon California

Audubon California is dedicated to protecting birds and other wildlife and the habitat that supports them. With more than 50,000 members in California and an affiliated 48 local Audubon chapters, Audubon California is a field program of Audubon. This relationship links Audubon California to a national network of community-based nature centers and chapters, scientific and educational programs, and advocacy on behalf of areas sustaining important bird populations, engaging millions of people of all ages and backgrounds in conservation.

More information is available at www.ca.audubon.org.