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Agricultural Easements The Land Trust holds conservation easements to protect agricultural land, natural resources and the scenic beauty of a dozen ranches and farms in north and south Santa Barbara County. Our easements make sure the land is kept open for agricultural use, and prevent it from being converted for residential or commercial development. Each easement is negotiated with the landowner. Some easements are purchased by the Land Trust. Others are donated, qualifying the owner for federal and state tax incentives. The Land Trust works with ranch and farm owners to prepare qualifying easements, and we are then responsible for annual monitoring to ensure that easements are followed by the current and future owners of the land. Agricultural easements generally do not provide for public access, although some ranch and farm owners allow Land Trust Events such as ranch or farm tours for our members and invited guests to better understand agriculture in our county. Los Flores Hunt Property 1 (653 acres) Thanks to the commitment and generosity of ranch owner Steve Lyons, a key land parcel between Los Alamos and Orcutt has been placed in a new conservation easement with The Land Trust for Santa Barbara County. Part of the original Las Flores Ranch, the 653-acre Lyons undeveloped property is on the southern slope of the Solomon Hills just west of the Highway 101. The ranch is remarkable for being located at a coastal-inland transition zone, and shows both elements of habitats endemic to the western coast of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties (such as Burton Mesa chaparral) and elements of inland plant communities. The property, long used for cattle grazing and some dry farming, is a mosaic of dense coastal sage scrub, oak woodland, stabilized dunes, and open grassland. It is an important link for habitat continuity between the public undeveloped lands to the southwest (La Purisima State Park, the Burton Mesa Ecological Reserve, and Vandenberg Air Force Base) and northeast (Los Padres National Forest), as it has relatively intact riparian habitat and culvert access under US 101 for migration of large mammals like deer, bear, mountain lion and bobcat. Under the voluntary conservation agreement donated by Steve Lyons in December 2009, the ranch will be limited to one home site and about 100 acres of agricultural cultivation and associated agricultural support buildings. Most of the land will be left undeveloped and available for livestock grazing. The Land Trust is working with Lyons and two adjacent ranch owners on a conservation plan that ultimately should include over 4,500 acres of land, stretching from San Antonio Creek along Highway 135 to the Solomon Hills. The Careaga Canyon/Las Flores Creek project area includes ponds (both natural wetlands and man-made livestock ponds) that provide known and potential breeding habitat for the endangered California tiger salamander (CTS). Based on two years of field studies of CTS breeding and movement patterns, the Land Trust's conservation plan will protect important aquatic and upland habitat for CTS and other water-dependent species, while allowing residential and commercial agriculture to continue outside of the defined habitat corridors. The Land Trust hopes to secure federal and state grants to purchase conservation easements on these ranches. If successful, this project will show that it is possible to protected habitat for sensitive wildlife species in a way that supports will-planned commercial agriculture and limited residential development for ranch families and employees. Rancho Aldea Antigua (23 acres) In recent years, the Land Trust has secured conservation easements on much of the land in the upper Franklin Creek and Santa Monica Creek watersheds, on Rancho Monte Alegre and the Horton Family Ranch. The ranch is owned by David H. Anderson, a founder, long-time board member and current general counsel of the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County, who has been a leader in voluntary land conservation locally and nationally for over two decades. The ranch is a key part of the open space view looking east from the proposed Franklin Trail. This historic hiking trail route, long closed by litigation involving a prior landowner, will connect from a trailhead near Carpinteria High School through private ranch land and all the way to the Santa Ynez Mountains ridge and East Camino Cielo. The Land Trust worked with the County and The Trust for Public Land to negotiate trail access agreements from the ranch owners. The County Parks Department is pursuing grant money to rebuild and reopen the trail. Horton Family Ranch (104 acres) "Our ranch has been in the family since the late 1800s and we expect to pass it on to the next generation. Our forebears would be gratified by the benefit the conservation easement provides to the community," says Bill Horton. Rancho la Purisima (1,007 acres) The McEnroes have made active efforts to protect Valley Oak seedlings on their ranch, and to control an outbreak of invasive yellow star thistle, working with the Natural Resource Conservation Service and a neighbor. "We support the principles of conservation easements," says Paul McEnroe. "We love our ranch as it is, a large singular parcel made up of a central valley surrounded by hills and ridges containing farm fields, open range and canopy oak land. This conservation easement will ensure our ability to live on the ranch as far as we can see into the future." Rancho
Dos Vistas, Gaviota (1,406 acres) La
Paloma Ranch, Gaviota (750 acres)
The Land Trust arranged grant funding from the State Coastal Conservancy, County of Santa Barbara and State Resources Agency to have this land permanently restricted to agriculture. The family retained the right to build three family homes and two employee dwellings, but gave up the right to further subdivide or develop the property except for agricultural use. Ecologically valuable communities of coastal sage scrub, chaparral and riparian habitat are protected under the easement as well.
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Rancho Aldea Antigua (Spanish for "ancient hamlet") runs along the western ridge of the Franklin Creek watershed, just outside the Los Padres National Forest. It is one of several dozen small ranches and farms that create the beautiful, open landscape between Foothill Road and the forest land. 
Bill Horton and Glenna Berry Horton placed 104 acres of their avocado ranch in a permanent conservation easement to guarantee that most of this scenic and productive avocado ranch will remain undeveloped in perpetuity.Bill's grandparents founded the ranch, and two succeeding generations have grown lemons, then avocados, on the ranch ever since.
Only three miles north of Buellton and alongside Highway 101, the eastern rolling hills of Rancho la Purisima are what people see for over a mile traveling north from Buellton. Paul & Tina McEnroe have owned the 1,000 acre ranch since 1994, and run a successful cattle and horse breeding/training business. 