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Katie DeBenedetti [00:01:01] This is an area up in the Western part of Marin County, really along the coast. It’s kind of a peninsula and extends about 70,000 acres. It’s just vast green hills and fields and there are cattle roaming, branches are kind of nestled in and you know you can see the Pacific Ocean out in the distance. There are 14 cattle and dairy ranches that are actually in the national seashore and there are more outside of it in the surrounding areas. They raise cattle and produce local beef and dairy, which is used by brands that we all know like Strauss Creamery. Most of these are family-run farms that have been operating in the area since really right after the California Gold Rush, so for more than a century.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:08] Okay, so a long legacy of ranching in this part of Point Reyes since the gold rush. But then I know that in 1962, Point Reye’s national seashore was established. How does this change things for the area and what goes on there?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:02:29] When the land was set aside, it was kind of to protect it against housing expansion and development, similar to the Golden Gate recreation area that keeps the Presidio and a lot of them are in headlands, a pretty open space. The biggest change was that the farmers actually had to sell their land back to the federal government and were promised in return that they would be offered leases. So originally these started out as, you know. 25 to 30 year leases. And the expectation was that, you know, they would continue to get leases and that would go on for generations. But over the last decade or so, they have had more trouble getting lease renewals, new long term leases, and instead there’s been kind of this patchwork of short term lease extensions, which has really hampered ranchers ability to invest in infrastructure and plan for the future. But also it opens them up a lot to litigation, especially over the past decade. Environmental groups have really targeted the area kind of arguing that this should be land that is restored and kept natural and it shouldn’t be used for agriculture anymore.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:55] Tell me a bit more about the lawsuits filed by environmentalists, what’s their argument?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:04:01] In 2016, three environmental groups, the Resource Renewal Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Western Watershed Project, they sued the National Park Service. This lawsuit by environmental groups kind of alleges that the ranchers dump large amounts of pollutants and greenhouse gasses onto the land. It can get into water and violates the Clean Water Act. And they say that it’s causing ecological damage and harming the elk population that grazes in the area.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:35] And what do ranchers say in response to that?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:04:38] At the time, ranchers hoped and really believed that when they made the deal to sell their land back in the 60s, generations of farmers could keep operating there for years to come. The Point Reyes Act says that the land could continue to be used for existing ranching and dairying purposes, but it also gave the Secretary of Interior oversight over conservation of the natural land there and management of the zone’s natural resources. But overall, I think ranchers thought, you know, we’ve been here a long time, we’re connected to this land and we should be able to continue to stay.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:05:20] We’re talking about this now because a settlement was reached earlier this year, what happened?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:05:28] So in January the Nature Conservancy announced that it had helped mediate a settlement between 12 of the 14 ranches that are within the National Seashore Area and the National Park Service. Basically the ranches agreed to be bought out of their lease agreements and stop ranching the land and in exchange the environmental groups would cease their litigation. Total the ranchers believe about. 16,000 of those acres are gonna be rezoned as a scenic landscape zone, which is gonna not allow ranching and really focus on conservation.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:15] When the deal was announced back in January, environmentalists called it a major victory for the native Tule elk. They also listed a whole waterfall of benefits, like less erosion and sediment in streams, restored native grasslands, and more access to trails and campsites for the public. Ranchers, on the other hand, said this would mark the end of a lifestyle as they knew it. Now that the deal is closed, it’s left a big question. What happens to the workers living on the ranches?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:06:53] There’s lots of people who work on the ranches and actually even live on the branches. There are about 100 people who are at risk of being displaced when these branches close. And West Marin and Marin in general doesn’t have enough shelter at the price that these tenants can afford for them really to stay. You know, I think there’s a lot of fear about just what’s going to come next.
Jasmine Bravo [00:07:24] There is fear and stress of having to possibly start a new life in another community and possibly, you know, another county.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:07:35] Jasmine Bravo works with the Bolinas Land Trust. She is an advocate for tenants in West Marin. Her family actually lived in ranch housing when she was growing up.
Jasmine Bravo [00:07:49] No affordable housing inside West Marin, specifically in Point Reyes and Inverness where people work, go to school, have their daughter.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:07:57] She said this is really a concern because a lot of the community is primarily Spanish-speaking and they’ve developed, you know, really strong ties where they have bilingual doctors, they have teachers that they trust, they have really developed resources that they stand to lose.
Jasmine Bravo [00:08:15] We are at serious risk of people leaving West Marin this year.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:08:21] And I imagine there’s this sort of ripple effect. Everyone is already sort of squeezed, right? And there’s already a housing crisis in Marin County. What is the reaction from the broader community?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:08:36] You know, not a lot of the tenants have really spoken super publicly about this just because it is so sensitive, but during a recent city council meeting, some of them talked about the way that this is gonna affect whether or not they can stay in West Marin and kind of just what the impact of losing this housing option is gonna be on them.
Ranch worker [00:09:06] Hola, buenos dias. Mi nombre es Enrique y vengo representando la comunidad de Ponreyes.
Ranch worker (interpreter) [00:09:14] This is the interpretation into English. I am the father of a son with an extreme disability. And as you can imagine, this situation is very, very worrisome. We are extremely concerned. Where are we going to go if we Asked to leave.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:09:49] Coming up, what help is being offered to displaced workers, and what’s next for the Point Reyes National Seashore. Stay with us.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:10] Well, what help is being offered to those 100 people who are being affected and displaced here?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:10:18] As part of the settlement deal, the Nature Conservancy is providing some resettlement resources for things like money to move and advising services. In March, the board of supervisors there declared a shelter crisis, in part they say to speed up development of temporary housing for displaced residents. This could mean bringing in tiny homes, bringing in mobile homes, kind of trying to get creative about spaces that. Under normal California law would not be allowed to be created into housing so quickly, but it remains to be seen if they can execute it.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:02] Well, I wanna talk about what things will look like moving forward, Katie. What’s the timeline here? I mean, how soon will these ranches close and how soon people will have to leave?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:11:13] For these 12 ranches, they have to wrap up their operations within 15 months of the settlement, which puts us at April of next year.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:26] There are still two ranches sort of hanging on, right? I mean, what does that mean for all of this?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:11:34] Nicolette Niman is one of two of the ranch operators who is actually not losing their ranch and suing the park service.
Nicolette Niman [00:11:46] In our view, the entire direction of the park in recent years, especially with this settlement now, has been to discourage agriculture.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:11:57] They’re saying the park’s service should include the option to lease the land to new generations of farmers.
Nicolette Niman [00:12:04] Not just the people, but just sort of the presence of people that are working on the lands and producing very high quality food on a smaller scale that’s grass-based.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:12:18] Nicolette says that the farms that operate in West Marin have really been at the forefront of sustainable and regenerative agricultural methods. She believes that this is a real benefit to ranching in general and is worried about what would happen if that doesn’t get to continue.
Nicolette Niman [00:12:37] There’s this opportunity here to use this as an example of what agriculture could be, what food production should be and could be in the future. And basically the park is just tossing that whole opportunity aside.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:12:52] And I know that Jasmine, one of the women you talked with, is very connected with many of the impacted workers. What did she tell you about how some of those displaced workers are feeling right now and where they’re sort of all at?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:13:10] People are really just feeling scared and unsettled. They don’t have a lot of information about, you know, these possible temporary housing options. They’re also looking at that March deadline and wondering if they should enroll their kids in school next fall, or whether they’re gonna be moving out of the county. And now they’re increasingly worried, too, about federal scrutiny.
Jasmine Bravo [00:13:37] Not only are people now facing job insecurity, housing instability, but people are now experiencing fear of retaliation.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:13:47] In April, some House Republicans launched a probe into the settlement deal, kind of looking to see if the deal is fair to ranchers. And people are worried. Some of them are undocumented. They don’t want the federal government kind of coming in and trying to speak with ranchers and looking around this deal. When the Congressional probe was launched, really the environmental groups, the ranchers have kind of all come out and said, please let the deal stand, you know, this is kind of our only option forward and it’s untenable to continue ranching in this area at this point.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:14:38] Um, I mean, so what’s, what is this all going to mean for this area of Point Reyes, Katie? I mean how could this part of the Bay Area change moving forward?
