Mendocino County Resource Conservation District to host IMCLT Chairman Alan Nicholson in upcoming webinars
Alan will be speaking for our Land Trust together with the Anderson Valley Land Trust and the Mendocino Land Trust on March 22nd and 24th 2021.
Register in advance: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMuceGoqDgvHNS26iWN9iQVRlFIjnwUJlsY
If you know anyone who may be interested in learning about Land Trusts and Conservation Easements, please pass this along.
SALC Winter 2021 Webinars / https://mcrcd.org/project/mendocino-county-sustainable-agricultural-lands-strategy-program
The Sustainable Ag Lands Committee is offering two opportunities for members of the community to learn more about Conservation Easements from representatives of Anderson Valley Land Trust, Inland Mendocino County Land Trust, and Mendocino Land Trust.
March 22: 6:30-8 pm
Conservation Easements: An Introduction
Why ag land conservation is important:
Alan Nicholson, Inland Mendocino County Land Trust
Barbara Goodell, Anderson Valley Land Trust
Overview of conservation easements:
Larry Turner, Mendocino Land Trust
Nikki Houtz, Mendocino Land Trust
March 24: 6:30-8 pm
Conservation Easements in Depth: Answering Your Questions and Planning for the Future
Tom Scharffenberger, Scharffenberger Land Planning & Design
Alan Nicholson, Inland Mendocino County Land Trust
Barbara Goodell, Anderson Valley Land Trust
Larry Turner, Mendocino Land Trust
Register in advance: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMuceGoqDgvHNS26iWN9iQVRlFIjnwUJlsY
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
“Standing Where She is Blessed”: Honoring Environmental Advocate Phyllis Curtis
This is a story about saving our land and natural habitats, and honoring the people who dedicate their lives to that aim. This also is a tale about two Ukiahans that began in the Deerwood neighborhood in the 1960s and continues today. Testimony to the power of their relationship sits on a bluff along the Point Arena coastline. In May 2018, Ukiah’s Phyllis Curtis, longtime resident and founder of the Inland Mendocino County Land Trust, was surprised with a celebration dedicating a bench in honor of her lifetime devotion to the environment and its conservation.
The man who came up with the idea for the bench, and who constructed it with the help of a friend, was Jeff Trouette. Trouette’s plumbing skills have long been valued in inland Mendocino County. Coast residents know him better as a photographer, where he shows his work in Mendocino’s Prentice Gallery.
Jeff Trouette grew up in Ukiah’s Deerwood neighborhood. Playing tennis at the old swim and tennis club as a boy, he met Phyllis Curtis and her husband Hugh. When the Curtises learned that Jeff and his family and friends enjoyed diving for abalone, they offered him an open invitation to access the sea through their Mendocino coast property. This openness and generosity made a lasting impression on young Jeff. Now 57, Trouette still thinks of 94-year old Phyllis as a wise grandmother. He has been especially touched by her passion for the land and its resources.
“I think of her as a true champion of the environment. Phyllis Curtis leads by example, and if she has a reason to act on anything with the environment, she supports it 150%,” says Trouette.
The best example of Curtis’ passion for the land and her penchant for going “all-in” is the Inland Mendocino County Land Trust. She and Hugh, who moved to Ukiah in 1957 after falling in love with the valley, witnessed growth and it impacts over the years. They knew this land conversion and development meant a loss of the inland area’s agricultural heritage, open space, and habitat for wildlife.
Curtis says, “By 1997, I knew it was time to save the land.”
Her conviction led her in 1998 to found the Inland Mendocino County Land Trust, which is committed to preserving the oak woodlands and agricultural lands of Mendocino’s interior through partnering with landowners to create conservation easements.
Jeff Trouette explains one of the secrets to Curtis’ success in her environmental advocacy.
“Phyllis has an important quality. She doesn’t draw a line in the sand,” he says. “Instead, she’ll bring an example to you. She is one of those rare people that we listen to. She can get people assembled and get them to listen.”
An experience on the Coast earlier this year offered Jeff Trouette a chance to acknowledge his respect and gratitude for Curtis. While working on a friend’s coastal property, he learned about a donation program of the Mendocino Land Trust to support construction of benches on conserved properties that it owns.
“Having learned good land stewardship from Phyllis, I said I’d be interested in contributing,” says Trouette. When he found out that the donation allowed him to put his own name on the bench, he considered it, but only briefly. It soon dawned on him, if there were to be a name on a bench overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Pelican Bluffs, it had to be Phyllis’s.
Not only has Trouette adopted the Curtis passion for the land, he also seems to have inherited a penchant for putting in 150% effort. First, he and his friend Gary Burica, a veteran supervisor of the CCC with extensive bench-building experience, got the OK from the Coast’s Mendocino Land Trust director Ann Cole to take on the project.
Cole says, “We greatly appreciate the bench donation, made by Jeff Trouette, and his idea to honor Phyllis this way. The bench is placed at a wonderful lookout spot with fantastic views of the coastline at Pelican Bluffs. This property is one of six preserves protected and owned in perpetuity by the nationally accredited Mendocino Land Trust, and one of many places where the Land Trust has worked with the community to build a trail for everyone to enjoy.”
Trouette and Burica were able to re-mill and use leftover timber from McKerricher State Park. To Jeff, recycling wood for the bench seemed an appropriate choice in honoring Curtis.
His next step was deciding what words to place on the plaque with Phyllis’s name. Privately, Trouette contacted Phyllis’ daughter Kim Curtis. Together, they agreed to surprise her mother with a celebration on the bluff after the bench, with plaque affixed, was completed.
Jeff admits, “Keeping this event concealed from Phyllis felt like I was lying to my grandmother.”
So, Phyllis Curtis labored for awhile under the illusion that the trip to Pelican Bluffs would be a chance for board members of the two land trusts to meet, while enjoying one of the Mendocino Land Trust’s several ocean bluff acquisitions. It proved to be that, and more. Besides representatives of the two conservation organizations, the celebration drew long-time friends and relatives from far distances, including grandchildren and a great nephew. Kim Curtis chose a quote from the poet Mary Oliver for the plaque.
Below the words “Dedicated to Phyllis Curtis” is the quotation: “Sometimes I need only to stand where I am to be blessed.”
—Dot Brovarney
Inland Land Trust Supports Agriculture: Kaos in Mendocino
The Inland Mendocino County Land Trust, based in Ukiah, does more than manage conservation easements in the interior of the County. To encourage preservation of our agricultural lands and open space, the Inland Land Trust Board is making an educational investment in young farmers and ranchers. Over the past two years, the Land Trust has provided funding to support learning opportunities that benefit local agriculture.
Following an application process in 2015, the Board awarded the owners of Kaos Sheep Outfit a stipend to attend a ranching business workshop. The funds enabled Jaime and Robert Irwin to participate in training at the internationally acclaimed Ranching for Profit School. The school provides tools and insights that ranchers need to build sustainable businesses.
“The program was the best therapy for our business because it gave us time to get on the same page with our business practices. It offered training in finance and labor that has really helped us to develop our operation, “ says Jaime.
Time to reflect on their business structure is rare because the Irwins run a complex operation – raising sheep for meat, wool, as well as grazing. No wonder they named their business Kaos – they graze sheep in three counties – Mendocino, Lake, and Colusa. Kaos provides sheep to organic winegrape growers who plant soil-building cover crops that need to be grazed. Among Mendocino clients are Dolan, Parducci, and Bonterra, The Irwins also graze their ewes in the pear orchards of Hopland’s Kurt Ashurst and Dan Todd in Potter Valley.
Robert comes from a family who raised sheep in Oregon. He and Jaime came to California in 2010 to run sheep for friends in a Sonoma vineyard. The experience inspired them to buy and raise their own sheep and, in 2012, they first grazed fifty acres at McDowell Vineyards and 1000 at Fetzer.
Jaime explains, “Grapegrowers and farmers find that grazing sheep on their cover crops, such as clover and fava beans, is less costly to them than mowing.”
Besides the advantage of grazing to sustainable farming practices, the Irwins demonstrated another of its important benefits when wildfire scorched acres and acres in Lake County in 2015.
“The Clearlake Oaks area is summer range where we graze. Even though the firestorm spread rapidly, it stopped and didn’t cross where our sheep had grazed,” Jamie explains.
The Irwins’ dedication to their profession has led them deep into the world of sheep. They even planned their 2013 honeymoon around research on the subject. They traveled to Australia to look at Corriedale rams, a breed formerly run in Mendocino County.
“Most large commercial operations rely on the Rambouillet due to its herding mentality and fine wool. But, Corriedale sheep also produce a fine wool and are better in rain than the Rambouillet,” says Jaime. So after the honeymoon was over, the couple returned to our region and built up a stock of Corriedale after purchasing semen and ewes.
During three years in business, they discovered that skilled help was hard to come by. Planning and management tools they acquired at Ranching for Profit have been key to their business growth. In the year since attending the workshop, the Irwins developed a strategy that led to acquisition of another sheep company. This purchase involved hiring new employees and expanded Kaos’ grazing capacity to 4000 ewes.
“The fire-grazing and crop residue grazing puts us in the public eye. It’s an opportunity to educate people about the value of livestock. I believe building our business from scratch, with the assistance of the Inland Land Trust, has made us better sheepherders,” Jaime concludes.
—Dot Brovarney
Inland Land Trust Supports Trail Expansion
Nature abounds outside our doors in Mendocino County. This is one of the joys of living here. Until recently, discovering places where we can enjoy the beauty surrounding us could be challenging. Over the past few years, several local groups have created opportunities to enhance our experience of the nearby natural world. These groups include the Redwood Valley Outdoor Education Project, the regional Audubon and Native Plant Society groups, the Inland Mendocino County Land Trust, and the California Naturalist Program at UC Hopland Research & Extension Center. Another organization, the Ukiah Valley Trail Group (UVTG), is proving to be a key to the success of these programs. Literally and figuratively, UVTG has made great inroads to our natural areas, repairing existing trails and creating new ones. Their work includes forging and maintaining routes into both the western and eastern hills, around Lake Mendocino, and beyond.
The Ukiah Valley Trail Group grew out of a trail experience that Neil Davis had a dozen years ago. Neil recalls, “A couple of us were running and we came upon a section of trail that had been re-routed around a wash out. We were complaining about the poor quality of the work and, around a turn in the trail, we came upon members of the Youth Conservation Corps. It was in the high 80s and the ground was really hard and they were obviously working really hard. We were embarrassed to have been caught complaining when we weren’t helping.”
Learning that there was no mechanism for them to contribute to the improvement of regional trails, Neil and his wife Andrea gathered their trail-using friends to brainstorm. Luckily for our community, the group organized as a non-profit dedicated to improving existing trails through hands-on involvement.
“We wanted to get stuff done, so we immediately contacted BLM and the Army Corps at Lake Mendo to find out where we could work. We had our first trail day in May 2004, just a few months after our first meeting,” says Neil.
Both the UVTG’s spade-in-the ground approach and choice to work collaboratively with existing agencies have paid off. In many cases, members have contributed the muscle while the Army Corps of Engineers, for example, has provided the heavy equipment necessary for trail work.
Since 2004, the organization has teamed up with the Army Corps of Engineers at Lake Mendocino, the City of Ukiah and the County of Mendocino at Low Gap Park, and the Bureau of Land Management at Cow Mountain. These collaborations have resulted in thirty miles of trail improvements and seven miles of new trails.
The UVTG’s current workload is substantial. Members have raised funds to craft a Low Gap Park Trail Plan, re-route a section of the notoriously steep Valley View Trail on Cow Mountain, and add a half-mile of new trail at Lake Mendocino. But UVTG has an even bigger vision. Its Expanding Horizons Trail Planning project brings public land managers and private landowners together with the group to discuss opening currently inaccessible areas to the public through trail building.
As a colleague organization that aims to preserve our oak woodlands, open space, and wildlife corridors, the Inland Mendocino County Land Trust recently made a donation to the UVTG’s $10,000 fundraising campaign to explore the possibilities for public access to riparian and oak woodland areas of our valley.
Founding Board Member Phyllis Curtis says, “The more access that we can provide our local community to the nature that surrounds us here in the Ukiah Valley, the more aware our residents will be of the value of conserving our natural landscapes.”
—Dot Brovarney
Partnering to Preserve Our Land: The Inland Mendocino County Land Trust
The Ukiah-based Inland Mendocino County Land Trust is among a growing number of regional organizations whose goal is to preserve open space, including farmlands, woodlands, wetlands, and wildlife corridors. This local group, dedicated to preserving Mendocino County’s beauty, recently secured an 1100-acre conservation easement on ranch and timberlands in Potter Valley. Securing this easement involved close collaboration between Inland Land Trust board members and the property owner to reach an agreement meeting the owner’s personal needs and, at the same time, fulfilling the Trust’s conservation goals.
“This is the kind of landowner we love to partner with. He’s an excellent steward and has been planting thousands of Doug Fir and mixed hardwoods on his land. The property has open space for wildlife from the valley floor to the mountain top – it’s a great combination,” says Land Trust President Phyllis Curtis.
Partnership is the watchword for the Inland Mendocino County Land Trust, a small organization with big goals. Formed as a non-profit in 1998, the mission of the Trust is to promote the health and vitality of regional forests, woodlands, grasslands and watersheds and to preserve agricultural lands. The group has been successful reaching conservation objectives through partnerships, both with landowners and like-minded groups.
Besides the ranch easement in Potter Valley, the Trust holds a 187-acre easement with the Frey family, protecting the last old growth redwoods in Redwood Valley. Obtaining the Redwood Valley agreement was particularly joyful, not only because it was the Land Trust’s first easement, but also because the joint effort saved the redwoods from a logging plan proposed by a previous owner.
Among its colleagues, the Inland Land Trust counts the Hopland Field Station, the Mendocino Land Trust, and Save the Redwoods League. A collaboration with the Field Station led to a report identifying preservation needs of the Russian River watershed. In another effort, the Inland Land Trust raised $11,000 to help a campaign by the coastal Mendocino Land Trust and Save the Redwoods League to preserve old growth and second growth redwoods at Ridgewood Ranch. The Ridgewood redwoods are now protected and are accessible to the public during special sponsored hikes, an optional educational provision that landowner Christ’s Church of the Golden Rule added to the easement agreement.
“We have a tradition of helping the Mendocino Land Trust and we want to work with all the land trusts in Mendocino County, including Anderson Valley and Albion,” says Curtis.
Among the Inland Land Trust’s highest priorities now is preserving farmland. The Trust’s commitment to agricultural land, which is a critical piece of Mendocino’s inland valley landscape, life and economy, offers a brand new opportunity for organizational partnership.
The Coast-based Mendocino Land Trust recently received a grant to fund conservation planning for Mendocino County’s farmlands. This conservation initiative will serve as a planning tool to identify prime agricultural lands for potential easement purchase. The Inland Land Trust board will be assisting in this critical and timely effort.
Curtis explains, “I’m excited that we’ll be able to help make contacts with farmers and ranchers here in the inland area. Right now, it’s more important than ever to create sustainability here on the North Coast and start to feed ourselves. Preserving farmland for the future is a key step toward achieving this goal.”
The Inland Mendocino County Land Trust will participate in this endeavor and, at the same time, continue its mission to partner with local landowners to preserve open space, wild land, wildlife and all the pieces of inland Mendocino that make it such a beautiful place to live.
—Dot Brovarney
Entrusting the Land to Our Future
A group of nature lovers recently got the chance to hike through a redwood forest on private property. How did this opportunity come their way? The answer: through a land conservation easement. The property owner is the Frey family. The holder of the conservation easement is the Inland Mendocino County Land Trust, a local non-profit based in Ukiah.
There are a number of benefits associated with placing land in a conservation easement. Tax advantages accrue to the landowner and easement provisions assure that his or her property will remain in its current condition, either as open space or agricultural use, in perpetuity. The land may be sold or passed on to heirs but the easement remains intact. The public also benefits as easement lands retain their traditional rural character, and, in some cases, such as the Frey’s, afford citizens opportunities for access, usually through guided hikes.
One such walk occurred on a recent autumn morning high in the Russian River watershed near Tomki Creek in Redwood Valley. Organized by local Sierra Club hike coordinator Yvonne Kramer and led by Daniel Frey, the three-mile hike began at the Frey Winery grounds and followed a winding trail northward. Thirty participants of all ages hiked through mixed woodlands resplendent with bright fall foliage. The destination – a meadow surrounded by easement-protected second growth redwoods with an old growth specimen nearby.
“The Frey land is a very special environment because it gets fog which makes these redwoods the easternmost stands in the county,” explains Yvonne Kramer, who brought along three grandsons.
Mendocino County Inland Land Trust President Phyllis Curtis explains, “These Redwood Valley redwoods were at risk as former property owners planned to remove them. The Freys wanted to save them so they purchased the land and we worked with them to create our first conservation easement.”
A second easement with another inland property owner now is in the works. Inland trust board members, including Curtis, are dedicated to preserving open space and agricultural traditions in our County’s inland valleys.
Besides the two easement efforts, several years ago Trust members raised more than $11,000 to assist the Coast-based Mendocino Land Trust preservation of an old redwood stand at historic Ridgewood Ranch just south of Willits. Besides the two-acre old growth grove, the easement includes a larger seventeen-acre stand of second growth. Like the Frey easement, the Ridgewood easement agreement provides public access via guided walks at designated times during the year.
“I look forward to arranging more hikes on conservation easement lands in the future,” says the Sierra Club’s Kramer. “We got a lot of local people from Redwood Valley but also people from the Coast, Cloverdale, Ukiah and Willits. It felt like a neighborhood walk.”
Phyllis Curtis explains, “While the Frey family and the Golden Rule Church members allow public access, it’s not a requirement for a conservation easement. The main goal is, first and foremost, to preserve the land.”
Curtis’s life experience as an L.A. native was the catalyst for forming the inland trust in 1998.“Los Angeles was a garden of Eden when I was growing up in the 1930s,” she recalls. “My grandfather had ten acres of fruit trees – orange, lemon and grapefruit – and I remember the sweet fragrance as I walked down the orchard rows.”
By the 1950s, Los Angeles had irrevocably changed and Curtis believes that poor planning led to its ruin. She says, “My grandfather’s orchard was paved over with a subdivision and, do you know, they didn’t leave one single tree standing?”
After Curtis married her doctor husband Hugh, they kept moving northward to try to recapture a little piece of Eden. They arrived in the Ukiah Valley in 1957.
“I started the Land Trust because I couldn’t bear to see what happened to Los Angeles happen in our beautiful valley,” says Curtis.
The inland group is seeking new easements and has a special interest in collaborating with farmers and ranchers. Curtis believes that preserving prime ag land is the key to saving our inland valleys for the future. She points to news reports that indicate a precipitous decline in both the quality of the earth’s soils and the acreage of the world’s farmland.
She says, “Agriculture has become a precious commodity,” noting that 40% of the world’s soils has become seriously degraded and globally, 1/3 of farmlands has been lost to erosion, just in the past forty years.
As a consequence of unbridled development, countries are seeking to grow their food elsewhere. China and India have bought up African land to plant crops to feed their own people.
Curtis concludes, “If we’re going to feed ourselves here in Mendocino County in the future, we need to preserve our ag land.”
—Dot Brovarney