In 2025, the California Rangeland Trust continued bringing people together around a shared commitment to California’s working lands. With the support of ranching families, donors, partners, and community members across the state, we reached important milestones, expanded our programs, and strengthened the connections that make conservation possible.
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.
For the past 20 years, the California Rangeland Trust has joined forces with eight like-minded organizations as part of the Partnership of Rangeland Trusts (PORT) to conserve rangelands.
The land holds stories—stories of resilience, wisdom, and the delicate balance of humans and nature. When we conserve this land, we protect these stories, allowing future generations to experience and learn from
them.
Ranching is a way of life that demands resilience, adaptability, and an unwavering commitment to the land. It’s a tradition built on long days, hard labor, and a deep respect for nature. For many families, the ultimate goal isn’t just making it through the tough seasons or turning a profit—it’s ensuring that the land remains productive, healthy, and intact for the next generation.
In the Salinas Valley of California, known as the “Salad Bowl of the World”, a local ranching family is helping to ensure that there will always be protein on the plate.
For over 140 years, the Silacci family has called the Valley home – beginning when patriarch Bautista Silacci immigrated to Monterey County. After living in Moss Landing in the early 1880s, he decided to move inland to Salinas to work at a local dairy. In 1887, seizing an opportunity to establish roots on the land and in the industry, he purchased the dairy. Together, he and his family raised dairy cattle and cultivated various crops, contributing to the Valley’s notorious bounty.
Along the Valley floor between Three Sisters Summit and Walker Ridge in Colusa County lies a 10-mile stretch of rangeland, otherwise known as the Bear Valley. This landscape is not visible by freeways or main thoroughfares, yet every spring thousands of people flock to the area to catch a glimpse of some of the best remaining panoramas of Northern California’s wildflowers. These springtime super blooms have been around longer than many even realize thanks in part to the diligent stewardship of local, ranching families, like the Keegan family.
When the Rangeland Trust is able to successfully conserve a piece of California’s working lands, it is cause for a celebration—another win in the fight to keep ranchers ranching and stave off conversion of these lands in the Golden State!
A century ago, the purchase of the Lone Star Ranch was sealed with a transaction of five gold coins. For five generations, the family stewarding this ranch has learned so much from the land and enhanced their care to align with the unique ecosystems here. Now, ranch owners, Mark and Dina Moore, are seeking the next step: permanent conservation of the Lone Star Ranch.
“As long as you could get on and off your horse and open a gate, you were working!”
Robin Flournoy cherishes memories of growing up in beautiful Portola Valley, where she became rooted in the traditions of ranching and its Western heritage. “I knew I wanted to be involved with this for the rest of my life.”
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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