2024 has been an incredible year for the Rangeland Trust! We reached some significant milestones. We took advantage of new opportunities to expand the organization. We reconnected with old friends and built new relationships throughout the state. Most importantly, we helped more ranching families achieve their dreams of conservation and safeguard the working landscapes that are so important to all of us.
Below are just a few highlights from this past year:
Because of your support, 400,000 acres of pristine rangeland, stewarded by 95 ranching families, will remain forever protected for future generations. This is a major milestone worth celebrating and is only possible because of you and this incredible community of landowner partners, donors, friends, and faithful supporters. Thank you for the impact you are making for California’s rangelands and ranching stewards!
By year-end, we expect to have conserved nine ranches totaling more than 13,000 acres of working lands in 2024. This is possible thanks to generous community support, federal and state agency grants, and partnerships with mitigators seeking to offset environmental impacts.
In fulfilling our promise to serve as a trusted partner to the landowners who choose to conserve with us, we launched our new programs department to provide support and resources to help ranchers be more resilient. Over the summer we hosted our first educational workshop on succession planning, along with our first webinar on virtual fencing. We look forward to growing this department and facilitating more educational offerings next year and beyond.
We wrapped up a successful film festival run with our new documentary, You Just Can’t See Them From the Road. The film was shown at more than two dozen film festivals across the country and garnered over 15 awards, including multiple coveted titles of “Best Documentary”.
While the film made its way through the festival circuit, we were unable to show it publicly. But now, we look forward to sharing it publicly through a series of film screenings throughout the state in 2025. Keep an eye out for more details on where you can watch it coming soon!
We continue to expand our community through special events that remind you that the ranches we are conserving are in your own backyards. Over the past year, we built landowner, donor, and community relationships through a series of regional events in San Diego, Orange County, Shasta Barbara, San Francisco, and Sacramento. We also expanded into the Tehama-Shasta region with our first (and hopefully annual) Sorting Classic Pro-Am (read more about it on page 9).
We continued to build relationships with State policy makers. Rangeland Trust CEO, Michael Delbar, testified multiple times in front of the State Senate Agriculture Committee to discuss ongoing challenges plaguing the agricultural industry, the importance of protecting California’s working lands and safeguarding our nation’s food supply, and the need for funding to support working lands conservation.
Along with our colleagues through the Partnership of Rangeland Trusts, we participated in a coalition advocating for key changes to advance conservation through Farm Bill programs. As of press time, we expect the Farm Bill to be extended into next year, but we are optimistic that most of our requested modifications and additions are being included in the House version of the Bill. We look forward to continuing to serve as a voice for California’s ranching conservationists on Capitol Hill in 2025.
The Rangeland Trust is well-poised for future success, and we will continue working tirelessly to help ranching families make conservation possible. Together with you, we are excited to make more good news for the land, people, and wildlife in the year ahead.
California Rangeland Trust is a nonprofit, tax-exempt charitable organization (tax identification number 31-1631453) under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Donations are tax-deductible as allowed by law.
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