The biggest land conservation deal in California’s history was announced yesterday, totaling nearly 240,000 acres in Southern California.
A couple of features, while not entirely new, are worth pointing out:
- The deal involved allowing the owners to develop about 10 percent of the area pretty intensely and maintain some natural resource extraction while preserving as wilderness the overwhelming majority — a good example of making a trade-off that doesn’t pit economic and environmental interests against each other and allows for much greater public access at the same time.
- New wildlife corridors are being constructed to allow animals and plants the ability to migrate; I have written about this before, since this type of flexibility will be crucial to ensure that species can adapt to climate change.
All in all, a good deal for California and the country. Something to celebrate.
