All Land is Beautiful is a series of conversations around the obvious, and not so obvious, natural beauty of California and beyond. The motivation and nexus to start this podcast comes from an ever-evolving personal perspective shift on what contemporary habitat conservation means and looks like. You see, I, like I believe most people come to experience and perceive what’s good and bad for nature (at least the ones that I have interacted with) are of the mindset that the best we can do for nature is to simply remove ourselves from it and the natural of order of things will sort themselves out. You see a dense forest, you should leave it alone; you see a natural grassy field, well there certainly shouldn’t be any cows or sheep in it, and in that case why don’t we remove all of that old barbed-wire fencing; driving through huge swaths of agricultural land, jeez can you imagine what this all looked like before we turned it into row crops? And while those are all completely legitimate ideas and trains of thought, over the last several years of working throughout the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada Foothills, I’ve come to find this whole thing is far more nuanced.
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All Land is Beautiful is a series of conversations around the obvious, and not so obvious, natural beauty of California and beyond. The motivation and nexus to start this podcast comes from an ever-evolving personal perspective shift on what contemporary habitat conservation means and looks like. You see, I, like I believe most people come to experience and perceive what’s good and bad for nature (at least the ones that I have interacted with) are of the mindset that the best we can do for nature is to simply remove ourselves from it and the natural of order of things will sort themselves out. You see a dense forest, you should leave it alone; you see a natural grassy field, well there certainly shouldn’t be any cows or sheep in it, and in that case why don’t we remove all of that old barbed-wire fencing; driving through huge swaths of agricultural land, jeez can you imagine what this all looked like before we turned it into row crops? And while those are all completely legitimate ideas and trains of thought, over the last several years of working throughout the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada Foothills, I’ve come to find this whole thing is far more nuanced.
E20: Operation Magnolia - A Land Protection Victory, with Lisa Lindman (Sutter Buttes Regional Land Trust)
All Land is Beautiful
51 minutes 16 seconds
6 months ago
E20: Operation Magnolia - A Land Protection Victory, with Lisa Lindman (Sutter Buttes Regional Land Trust)
On this episode I sit down with Lisa Lindman, Executive Director of the Sutter Buttes Regional Land Trust, to discuss the nuances of conservation work within the landscapes of Yuba, Sutter, and Colusa counties. In line with the underlying theme of this podcast, we talk thru the land trust’s work in a diverse agricultural and wildlife-rich region characterized by thriving rice fields that support migratory waterfowl, rolling oak woodlands and rangeland, as well as stunning views extending from the Central Valley to the Cascades; but with the unique addition of a significant military presence, via the Beale Air Force Base.
Starting off we take a look Lisa’s personal journey from a childhood in Santa Cruz to a land conservation leadership role in the Central Valley, building on her background in landscape architecture and restoration, as well as community involvement. But our primary focus is highlighting the land trust’s recent success in completing the Magnolia Ranch conservation easement in 2024, a major undertaking to protect over 900 acres from development outside the City of Marysville, to the tune of almost $19 million. Standing out from other similar projects in the region, we talk about how the success of Magnolia Ranch relied on an unlikely partner, the United States Department of Defense through its Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration program, or REPI for short, which aims to prevent incompatible land uses near military bases via conservation. Lisa shares how the collaborative spirit of the project, between the land trust, the developer, and military personnel, ended up in a regional, multi-beneficial conservation win. The episode closes with a discussion on how this project has opened up channels of communication for future projects and aspirations, as well as the continuous, ongoing nature of conservation work.
All Land is Beautiful
All Land is Beautiful is a series of conversations around the obvious, and not so obvious, natural beauty of California and beyond. The motivation and nexus to start this podcast comes from an ever-evolving personal perspective shift on what contemporary habitat conservation means and looks like. You see, I, like I believe most people come to experience and perceive what’s good and bad for nature (at least the ones that I have interacted with) are of the mindset that the best we can do for nature is to simply remove ourselves from it and the natural of order of things will sort themselves out. You see a dense forest, you should leave it alone; you see a natural grassy field, well there certainly shouldn’t be any cows or sheep in it, and in that case why don’t we remove all of that old barbed-wire fencing; driving through huge swaths of agricultural land, jeez can you imagine what this all looked like before we turned it into row crops? And while those are all completely legitimate ideas and trains of thought, over the last several years of working throughout the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada Foothills, I’ve come to find this whole thing is far more nuanced.
