Conservation Criteria
New Land Protection Projects
The Ojai Valley Land Conservancy’s conservation objective entails adding to the roughly 2,000 acres already protected by OVLC by protecting an additional 2,020 acres by 2020 in four conservation priority areas. Land “protection” retains the traditional definition of simple (fee) acquisition, conservation or agricultural easements, or potentially other types of permanent restrictions on land use. Furthermore, the concept of “protection” implies that the land uses that would be incompatible with OVLC values of sustaining important agricultural lands and maintaining and/or providing views, trails, water & wildlife would be precluded, even if allowable based on current zoning or public ordinances. In this context, “views” is shorthand for scenic or aesthetic resources, “trails” is shorthand for recreational and educational opportunities, and “wildlife” is shorthand for habitat of important plants and animals.
It is important to note that OVLC will continue to pay attention to the amount of land we protect through fee acquisition as opposed to other mechanisms. Land protected through fee acquisition offers advantages as far as provision of public access and control over restoration, for example, but it entails a significant financial commitment for ongoing management and maintenance. OVLC hasn’t approached a tipping point yet, but the organization will need to continue to be conscious of the risk of collapsing under the weight of acquiring too much land as opposed to protecting it through a different mechanism. Building a stewardship endowment as discussed in other parts of this plan is a way to offset the financial risk of land ownership.
The four conservation priorities described later were selected based on (1) the extent to which they possess or have the potential to possess the values (important agricultural land, views, trails, water & wildlife) OVLC seeks to protect, (2) opportunity, including willing landowners and partner interest including funding, and (3) momentum. With regard to momentum, the “conservation whole” is always greater than the sum of the parts, and new conservation projects contiguous to and building on old projects almost always offer a much greater benefit on a per acre basis than isolated projects in new areas.
In this section, OVLC’s land protection criteria are described and reaffirmed, and our conservation priority areas are described.
Land Protection Priority Criteria
The Ojai Valley Land Conservancy has utilized a consistent, time-tested set of land protection, aka conservation criteria, over the years. As developed by OVLC’s Land Committee and summarized in a white paper entitled, “Conservation Plan for the Ojai Valley – Commitment to the Future”, the basic conservation criteria utilized by OVLC and its Land Committee are and will remain as follows:
(1) Protection of scenic viewsheds.
(1a) open space lands that serve as a scenic gateway to Valley communities;
(1b) key ridgeline, valley, and canyon viewsheds as seen from public highways, roads, and trails; and
(1c) lands that offer important visual relief and contrast to surrounding developed areas; that possess outstanding visual variety or unique landscape features; and pastoral settings that help define the community’s rural character.
(2) Protection and enhancement of environmental values.
(2a) Native wildlife habitats, with special emphasis on preserving:
- Areas that support a diversity of habitats in close proximity;
- Areas that enhance core habitat; and
- Areas that contribute to habitat connectivity.
(2b) Sensitive, threatened, and endangered species and communities.
(2c) Areas with high restoration potential.
(3) Perpetuation of sustainable agriculture.
(3a) agricultural lands managed for crop production or grazing, especially those under threat of conversion to more intensive development and uses;
(3b) agricultural lands that are important to maintaining the critical mass of farmland both locally and regionally; lands that are important to the integrity of the local and regional agricultural industry;
(3c) sustainability—agricultural lands that are economically viable and compatible with adjoining lands.
(4) Provision of nature-based recreation and education opportunities.
(4a) nature-based outdoor recreation opportunities;
(4b) regional trail corridors or non-motorized trail connections between neighborhoods and natural areas; and
(4c) environmental and cultural education experiences for school children and adults. Examples include areas ideally suited for short interpretive trails, universal trails (handicap-accessible), and field trips.
In addition to the Land Committee’s criteria, it is suggested that the protection of water be explicitly added as a conservation criterion. As is intuitively obvious, and as will without doubt be formally identified in upcoming conservation planning work for the Ventura River watershed, almost all of the above criteria are critically dependent upon water. Currently, the communities of the Ventura River watershed are reported to enjoy self-sufficiency with regard to our water resources, and the importance of sustainable use of this most valuable resource to support our residents, our agricultural lands, and our wildlife and scenery is unquestioned. For the purposes of achieving our 10-year goal and ultimately mission success, and for programmatic reasons given the high profile of the water issue in the Ojai Valley, adopting water as a conservation criterion is proposed.
Specifically:
(5) Contribution towards sustainable use of ground and surface water in the Ojai Valley, including use of water in a way that supports the other conservation criteria.
In nearly all cases, a particular parcel’s proximity to other protected lands would lead us to more highly rank a property with regard to its conservation value. In the evaluation of individual parcels as well as in the identification of conservation priority areas described below, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts – contiguity with other protected lands is desirable all else equal.
