SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Ariz. – Travelers often reach the top of Forest Route 58 in the Patagonia Mountains and gasp at the sight of the San Rafael Valley stretching all the way to Mexico below. The valley, where the musical “Oklahoma” was filmed many years ago, is one of the most intact shortgrass prairie areas in the Southwest, with vast expanses of grassland and rolling ridges. Locals call this hill 110 miles south of Tucson “Oh My God Point.”
Now, the valley has a new surprise. The uproar stems from a major conservation agreement announced last month by the Arizona State Parks Commission to preserve the 34-square-mile San Rafael Ranch in the heart of the valley.
The state will pay approximately $8 million in state Heritage Fund funds to rancher Bob Sharp and his sisters to purchase development rights to the Sharp family’s 22,000 acres of land through a conservation easement. The Sharp family will continue to own the ranch, but the state will acquire a small piece of land for the Grasslands Education Center, which will be preserved for ranching and open space.
The deal still needs to be finalized, but it will be the first time Arizona has purchased a large conservation easement with public funds. It’s also a rare example of ranchers leading a reluctant state into an ambitious conservation project.
“Conservation efforts by people who don’t normally come together for conservation work are rarely successful on a landscape scale,” said Luther Propst of the Tucson-based Sonora Research Institute. .
Propst and the Institute helped with the technical work, but the easement owes its existence to valley ranchers who have long been concerned about the future of their countryside. In 1992, absentee landowners divided the adjacent Kiheka Ranch into hundreds of acres, raising concerns about subdivision. At the same time, the Sharp family realizes that they may have to sell the ranch to pay high inheritance taxes when Bob Sharp’s mother dies and leaves the ranch to her children.
These fears galvanized the community, and in 1994 a group of ranchers formed the San Rafael Valley Land Trust to help keep their valley and way of life intact. “We basically had to figure all of this out on our own,” says trust chair Anne Patton, recalling the group’s early meetings. “But in the end, an easement seemed like the best way to wrap things up.”
Easements are a good choice for ranchers because they allow landowners to sell development rights, raise needed cash, and reduce property and inheritance taxes while preserving land and maintaining local control. It was thought that it was. Still, calling conservation groups like the Nature Conservancy may have alarmed some valley residents. So the ranchers decided to take action against the state, which in 1990 established a “heritage fund” to protect natural areas.
Nevertheless, the trust spent two years “just trying to convince someone[in state government]to do something,” Patton said. Arizona has historically been hostile to conservation. Like many Western states, Arizona has moved slowly toward purchasing private land and development rights for fear of angering property rights advocates. As a result, the Heritage Fund has raised approximately $8 million to protect underused and neglected natural areas.
“We’ve been kind of on the backs of the (Arizona Parks Commission) for years of squatting,” said Andy Gordon, a Phoenix attorney who heads the Arizona Heritage Alliance, which oversees the fund. ” he says.
But now the San Rafael easement comes along, and it’s crazy — it’s like someone hitting .050 hitting a grand slam,” Gordon said. This is a “milestone in terms of a reluctant state realizing what it can do. Finally, Arizona can keep the land on the tax rolls, make peace with ranchers, and do so in a cost-effective manner.” We are finding that easements are a great way to achieve high conservation.”
Gordon isn’t the only one celebrating. Arizona ranchers are rallying around this massive easement, and many have begun inquiring about making similar deals happen. “This is an option for ranchers,” acknowledged CB “Doc” Lane, president of the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association. “If this is what the country wants to do, so be it.”
Editorial written by Mark Muro arizona daily star In Tucson.
you can contact…
* Arizona State Park, 1300 W. Washington, Phoenix, AZ 85007 (602/542-1996).
* Report from the Sonora Institute, “An Overview of Arizona’s San Rafael Valley and a Framework to Guide the Valley’s Future,” 7290 E. Broadway, Tucson, AZ 85710 (520/290-0828).
* San Rafael Valley Land Trust, HCR 2, Box 179, Patagonia, AZ 85624 (520/455-5310).
