I grew up in this area. There were NO Tule elk there in the 60s and 70s, just a peaceful off-the -beaten road strip of coast where fishermen and duck hunters enjoyed their days in the myriad duck blinds and skiffs that dotted a a cold and windy surf. Best place in the state for fresh cheeses. Neighbors were ranchers… I can’t believe the mess this government has unleashed on this pristine place. The secrecy makes me immediately suspect something dastardly. I’m disappointed at Burghams non response to you. Thought this new administration was into transparency.
Trying out outlandish c. theories: it's not getting rid of the cattle, it's getting rid of the "non-affiliated" *people.* To clear a pleasant semi-remote ocean-access territory of observers for God-knows-what.
I need a neck brace after shaking my head so much while reading this. What a tangled mess our government makes of things--aided by granola crunching libiots.
Oh I love the idea of allowing the wolf population to return so they can “predate” on the Tule Elk population and keep it in check.
But wait till the wolves start to go after the animals and livestock of the “lefty/progressive back to the landers” who inhabit West Marin, specifically the Point Reyes area. You will hear the “bloody murder” cries to “eliminate the wolves”, clear over in Fairfax and San Rafael!
We lived in the Bay Area briefly in the late 90's and I used to love that park. Driving up there felt like going back in time and the views were so stunning they almost beggared belief. The farms were so lovely to see and the cattle grazing on the clifftops lent it such pastoral charm, with the verdant fields juxtaposed against the rugged coastline. It really was a magical place and it makes me very sad to read about how the NPS is literally destroying it at the behest of obnoxious rich liberals. Unfortunately, as someone who has lived along the west coast for almost 3 decades now I see the pattern. Any attractive place close to a major population center will eventually get destroyed one way or another by rich liberals. Usually it's by moving in and remaking it as mini Portland or Seattle or by buying up property until the locals get priced out, usually both. Even our modest local park, a defunct former golf course first developed a century ago, now has been remade into some kind of environmentalist space. I'm not sure exactly what it's meant to be now, but whatever it is, it isn't a place where families can spread out picnic blankets or throw a ball around, as they had been used to doing for decades.
Chris, Let me explain why there has to be new cows to replace the old cows. The new cows will have had their mRNA vaxxes and be better educated, as they are not old cows. Also, the old cows are racists and the new cows are not, having been selected by the park service for their DEI/AA qualities. Which means, they will be multi-colored and diverse cows. It's much like what is happening all over Western civilization, where the same type government officials are replacing the old humans, who are racist and opposed to diversity, with new humans, who represent DEI at its best, being multi-colored and, of course, are not racist.
I hope that clears it all up for you, the ranchers, and all your readers. Really nothing to see here but equity, comrades.
These are the type cows they should put at Point Reyes, etc. They are integrated. They do have more white than black, which might be problematic, but it's close.
Very interesting piece. I think it reveals that bureaucratic insanity is NOT a partisan issue.
Coincidentally I wrote something yesterday in which I advised people to (partly) refocus their political attention away from Ukraine and Gaza, and toward their own communities. Your ideology should grow naturally out of your daily observations and experience... otherwise you're ripe for capture by manipulators and narcissists.
I never heard of this location or this issue before this and your recent posts. Looking at google maps of the area and your pictures, it looks stunning. I truly hope that Burgum is busy settling in to his big cushy corner office in DC that he has not had time to investigate this travesty. Meanwhile, the swamp machine keeps swamping within the Dept of Interior. There has always been a huge disconnect between the environmental movement and farming and this is a prime example. Has this issue been reported in the main stream press in CA or is it not part of the desire CA centric narrative? If it has been publicized it appears that few people actually care about it. Very disheartening . . . I wonder if an Orange Executive Order could undo this?
An Orange EO could not undo the private settlement between environmental groups and ranchers, but it could force the NPS to allow new ranchers. I take the complete absence of new coverage outside the Bay Area as a sign of the implosion of the mainstream media. Twenty years ago, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, at the very least, would have been all over this story. It's the most significant development regarding the use of public lands that we've seen in this century, and the end of 200 years of history. Mostly unnoticed, and not a national story.
Chris, I spent about an hour so far reading to learn more about this. Here is my take so far... This has a very sleezy feel to it. I mean a "private organization" coerces the "settling farmers" to agree to walk away from the leases from the NPS. Said agreement was negotiated outside the sunshine type requirements and "pops up" in early January. NPS issues a glowing press release touting the "voluntary ranch closure agreements". Interestingly enough, a number of the farmers being bought out are organic beef and dairy farmers. Where is the outrage that the cost of organic products will increase because of this extortion? I would expect that they would be acting like Donald Trump just added a tariff in some country that produces the junk (in a non-environmentally friendly way) they buy?
I appreciate you writing about this. I have shared your Substack’s with friends (older with adult children), who live over in Sebastopol in Sonoma County. They frequently go over to Point Reyes to hike and go to the beach in the summer, in the secluded coves along Tómales Bay, near Inverness. They knew little to nothing about out this story.
Yes it is being ignored. My friend has been a realtor/high end residential property leasing agent down in Mill Valley for years.
He knew nothing about this story. But then again people are so “siloed” in their “information bubbles” these days. If it’s not “news” that potentially affects them, basically they aren’t at all curious as to what is going on in their local towns, cities, county, or state or national events.
I feel it's not been ignored but has been buried so deeply that people couldn't organize to protest. Given the timing, COVID years, it was for making their move on the ranchers while everyone was distracted by politics and hysteria. It's too bad that the new NPS administrators don't see the importance of this land grab as it relates to DOGE and the overreach of government control. Nevertheless, rewriting this agreement could be a good way to show CA and environmentalists that their unreasonable ideas won't be tolerated.
I take this as, the activists got the drop in early on any journalism that would cover them critically. It's not about the ranchers or the grass grazed dairy, so beloved by foodies, it's about the orange man. Therefore any shady agreement the 12 have (had to) come to is only further proof of their guilt. Even if there's to be a new Chinese grass fed ranching operation, well, "we like China because orange man doesn't".
without question this is literally front page news and glad that you are writing about it Chris! but NYT and LAT won't touch it because it exposes the UN2030 sustainable development goals as a nonsensical fraud
from elizabeth nickson's prescient 2012 expose, eco-terrorists, p. 152 "From 1963 to 2002, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), a leading source of funds for land
acquisition, provided nearly $12.5 billion for acquisition. But the costs of managing the land were $224 billion, or seventeen times the cost of acquisition. About $10.3 billion in maintenance was spent by LWCF in 2002 alone. If we take the acreage preserved in the continental United States alone over the past ten years as hovering somewhere aro und 650 million acres, the amount of money to maintain those acres in a state of health simply boggles the mind. Mothballing those roughly 80 million acres of Western
forest on behalf of the spotted owl from 1993 to 1996 meant no maintenance was allowed at all. The Forest Service didn’t have the money, and any mitigation they proposed immediately landed them in court, fighting the [eco-freako globalist] movement’s lawyers"
------In 1973, Burton allowed a bill to go to the floor without a "closed rule"—a stipulation that there could be no amendments proposed to it—for the first time since the 1920s.[2] The ending of the closed rule created an infusion of federal lobbyists at the Capitol building; the lobbyists targeted members of Congress to add funding for lobbyists' favorite projects into bills.[2] For this reason, David Frum wrote that Burton "created the modern Congress" more than anyone else.[2]
He must have had strong connections and sponsorships from well moneyed but Brave AI refuses to mention any names, except that he supported and was supported by unions
-----Burton was also a strong advocate for environmental protection, and he played a key role in the creation of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California. He was also involved in the establishment of the Point Reyes National Seashore, a protected area of coastline and wilderness in Northern California.
This is the era of expanding environmentalist movement ideas across the world, well financed by oil money and NGOs. We can thank this congressman for inviting Nancy Pelosi to grace us with her charm representing California in DC, according to this wiki page.
I bet the troubles and decimation of California can be traced to money surrounding so called environmentalists, which are really money and power entities.
Burgum is not to be trusted, hopefully someone else will take his place soon.
Kalifornia will soon be inhabited by two kinds of people. The ultra rich and the dirt poor. Then the ultra rich will slowly “help” the poor to find housing…… in another state.
Spnt several days walking around West Marin this week. The population is extremely white, and trending hard toward retirees. The people behind the retail counters, and the workers at the pre-school, are Latinas. It's very progressive.
I talked to MALT this week. Their view is that they focus on preserving privately owned land for agriculture and open space, and the lawsuit over public land has nothing to do with them. But they're working with some of the ranchers who are being pushed off the seashore, trying to find new land for them in the area. They're involved, but not politically involved.
Those two remaining ranchers are facing all kinds of problems due to being a dying breed, I suppose. Their costs will go up, and their market will diminish.
Mr. Bray, thank you for covering this story. Do you know the (true, original) source of the monies that were used to pay off the departing ranchers? It feels like a hefty sum. So, as near as I can tell from your reporting; here were a bunch of beautiful cattle ranchers, not bothering anyone, which had been around for a long time, with wonderful grass-fed cows, producing fantastic cheeses, and I assume milk and perhaps other dairy products (I’m not clear on whether all/some of the ranches produced grass-fed beef? Dairy ranches or beef ranches, or a combination of both?). Anyway, recently some ‘behind the curtain power that be’ apparently decided they had to go…so people could hike in a so-called parkland? Am I even remotely understanding this? I’m finding it literally impossible to believe that ‘someone’ doesn’t have a plan to develop this stunning area and make a shit-ton of money in the process. I just can’t think of any other explanation. Can the NPS sell the land in the future?
It's national park land, so there won't be much development on it, although the NPS is now talking about the possibility of building some lodging on the seashore. Money came from the Nature Conservancy, which got it like this:
"Making the rounds in the affluent Marin County enclave of Ross on Jan. 12, 2023, they stopped by the house of Dan Kalafatas and his wife Hadley Mullin. He is chairman of the global climate strategy company 3Degrees, and she is senior partner and senior managing director at the private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners. Together, they agreed early on to support the cause and to help fundraise and spread the word to their well-connected friends."
Thank you for the additional info. I still can’t help wondering if there are any legal loopholes that would let NPS get away with selling it to developers in the future. Not that many laws are even respected or followed much these days. Many thanks for sharing this story.
nature conservancy has a long long history of corruption, giving the land to hi-end donors for mcmansions and the exact same kind of development they claimed to be fighting
Another nonprofit mentioned in the Press Democrat article that gets taxpayer money, according to datarepublican.com, is Resources Legacy Fund at $1,808,348.
According to the article, The Nature Conservancy raised the $32+ million to buy out the ranchers and resettle the employees. One question might be how much of that money was funneled through other nonprofits, and how much of that was taxpayer money.
Thanks for the info. All I know is, IMO it is absolutely wrong to force the cattle ranchers off of this land, just because you have enough money to bribe them.
I grew up in this area. There were NO Tule elk there in the 60s and 70s, just a peaceful off-the -beaten road strip of coast where fishermen and duck hunters enjoyed their days in the myriad duck blinds and skiffs that dotted a a cold and windy surf. Best place in the state for fresh cheeses. Neighbors were ranchers… I can’t believe the mess this government has unleashed on this pristine place. The secrecy makes me immediately suspect something dastardly. I’m disappointed at Burghams non response to you. Thought this new administration was into transparency.
Jealous. Good childhood!
Trying out outlandish c. theories: it's not getting rid of the cattle, it's getting rid of the "non-affiliated" *people.* To clear a pleasant semi-remote ocean-access territory of observers for God-knows-what.
That's what at least some of the ranchers think: It's not the cows they want gone, it's us.
We are the carbon they want to eliminate.
No one wants to sit on the porch of a ten million dollar home and look at cows. How bougie.
It's us AND the cows. Remember; they want us eating bugs, not meat and milk.
Yep...🇺🇸💔😭
It sounds to me like the wolves have already returned to West Marin.
I need a neck brace after shaking my head so much while reading this. What a tangled mess our government makes of things--aided by granola crunching libiots.
Oh I love the idea of allowing the wolf population to return so they can “predate” on the Tule Elk population and keep it in check.
But wait till the wolves start to go after the animals and livestock of the “lefty/progressive back to the landers” who inhabit West Marin, specifically the Point Reyes area. You will hear the “bloody murder” cries to “eliminate the wolves”, clear over in Fairfax and San Rafael!
RELEASE THE WOLVES!
We lived in the Bay Area briefly in the late 90's and I used to love that park. Driving up there felt like going back in time and the views were so stunning they almost beggared belief. The farms were so lovely to see and the cattle grazing on the clifftops lent it such pastoral charm, with the verdant fields juxtaposed against the rugged coastline. It really was a magical place and it makes me very sad to read about how the NPS is literally destroying it at the behest of obnoxious rich liberals. Unfortunately, as someone who has lived along the west coast for almost 3 decades now I see the pattern. Any attractive place close to a major population center will eventually get destroyed one way or another by rich liberals. Usually it's by moving in and remaking it as mini Portland or Seattle or by buying up property until the locals get priced out, usually both. Even our modest local park, a defunct former golf course first developed a century ago, now has been remade into some kind of environmentalist space. I'm not sure exactly what it's meant to be now, but whatever it is, it isn't a place where families can spread out picnic blankets or throw a ball around, as they had been used to doing for decades.
Chris, Let me explain why there has to be new cows to replace the old cows. The new cows will have had their mRNA vaxxes and be better educated, as they are not old cows. Also, the old cows are racists and the new cows are not, having been selected by the park service for their DEI/AA qualities. Which means, they will be multi-colored and diverse cows. It's much like what is happening all over Western civilization, where the same type government officials are replacing the old humans, who are racist and opposed to diversity, with new humans, who represent DEI at its best, being multi-colored and, of course, are not racist.
I hope that clears it all up for you, the ranchers, and all your readers. Really nothing to see here but equity, comrades.
Danny Huckabee
It is all clear now.
sasha latypova's oreo cows? https://allaprima.substack.com/p/free-content-animals-in-landscape
These are the type cows they should put at Point Reyes, etc. They are integrated. They do have more white than black, which might be problematic, but it's close.
Your comment reminds me of Mao’s Cultural Revolution's destruction of the ‘Four Olds’ — old ideas, old customs, old culture, and old habits of mind.
Very interesting piece. I think it reveals that bureaucratic insanity is NOT a partisan issue.
Coincidentally I wrote something yesterday in which I advised people to (partly) refocus their political attention away from Ukraine and Gaza, and toward their own communities. Your ideology should grow naturally out of your daily observations and experience... otherwise you're ripe for capture by manipulators and narcissists.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/the-euphemism-treadmill
Omg rewilding. Don't. Get. Me. Started. What a beautiful place, what a shame people don't understand how it got that way....
I never heard of this location or this issue before this and your recent posts. Looking at google maps of the area and your pictures, it looks stunning. I truly hope that Burgum is busy settling in to his big cushy corner office in DC that he has not had time to investigate this travesty. Meanwhile, the swamp machine keeps swamping within the Dept of Interior. There has always been a huge disconnect between the environmental movement and farming and this is a prime example. Has this issue been reported in the main stream press in CA or is it not part of the desire CA centric narrative? If it has been publicized it appears that few people actually care about it. Very disheartening . . . I wonder if an Orange Executive Order could undo this?
An Orange EO could not undo the private settlement between environmental groups and ranchers, but it could force the NPS to allow new ranchers. I take the complete absence of new coverage outside the Bay Area as a sign of the implosion of the mainstream media. Twenty years ago, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, at the very least, would have been all over this story. It's the most significant development regarding the use of public lands that we've seen in this century, and the end of 200 years of history. Mostly unnoticed, and not a national story.
Chris, I spent about an hour so far reading to learn more about this. Here is my take so far... This has a very sleezy feel to it. I mean a "private organization" coerces the "settling farmers" to agree to walk away from the leases from the NPS. Said agreement was negotiated outside the sunshine type requirements and "pops up" in early January. NPS issues a glowing press release touting the "voluntary ranch closure agreements". Interestingly enough, a number of the farmers being bought out are organic beef and dairy farmers. Where is the outrage that the cost of organic products will increase because of this extortion? I would expect that they would be acting like Donald Trump just added a tariff in some country that produces the junk (in a non-environmentally friendly way) they buy?
The purported bird flu outbreak has also been used to crush family-run organic farms. Is this an attack on autonomy?
I appreciate you writing about this. I have shared your Substack’s with friends (older with adult children), who live over in Sebastopol in Sonoma County. They frequently go over to Point Reyes to hike and go to the beach in the summer, in the secluded coves along Tómales Bay, near Inverness. They knew little to nothing about out this story.
Isn't that amazing? It's being ignored.
Yes it is being ignored. My friend has been a realtor/high end residential property leasing agent down in Mill Valley for years.
He knew nothing about this story. But then again people are so “siloed” in their “information bubbles” these days. If it’s not “news” that potentially affects them, basically they aren’t at all curious as to what is going on in their local towns, cities, county, or state or national events.
I feel it's not been ignored but has been buried so deeply that people couldn't organize to protest. Given the timing, COVID years, it was for making their move on the ranchers while everyone was distracted by politics and hysteria. It's too bad that the new NPS administrators don't see the importance of this land grab as it relates to DOGE and the overreach of government control. Nevertheless, rewriting this agreement could be a good way to show CA and environmentalists that their unreasonable ideas won't be tolerated.
Chris, I've only read a few of the many articles you've written about this. You may have already written about this: https://www.thewildlifenews.com/2019/10/31/trumps-fix-is-in-on-point-reyes/
I take this as, the activists got the drop in early on any journalism that would cover them critically. It's not about the ranchers or the grass grazed dairy, so beloved by foodies, it's about the orange man. Therefore any shady agreement the 12 have (had to) come to is only further proof of their guilt. Even if there's to be a new Chinese grass fed ranching operation, well, "we like China because orange man doesn't".
I did see that, and my understanding is that Biden revoked Trump's order. I need to get into it in more depth.
Ah, I'll guess in advance of looking that might have been written up as the "well connected ranchers" suffering just desserts.
without question this is literally front page news and glad that you are writing about it Chris! but NYT and LAT won't touch it because it exposes the UN2030 sustainable development goals as a nonsensical fraud
from elizabeth nickson's prescient 2012 expose, eco-terrorists, p. 152 "From 1963 to 2002, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), a leading source of funds for land
acquisition, provided nearly $12.5 billion for acquisition. But the costs of managing the land were $224 billion, or seventeen times the cost of acquisition. About $10.3 billion in maintenance was spent by LWCF in 2002 alone. If we take the acreage preserved in the continental United States alone over the past ten years as hovering somewhere aro und 650 million acres, the amount of money to maintain those acres in a state of health simply boggles the mind. Mothballing those roughly 80 million acres of Western
forest on behalf of the spotted owl from 1993 to 1996 meant no maintenance was allowed at all. The Forest Service didn’t have the money, and any mitigation they proposed immediately landed them in court, fighting the [eco-freako globalist] movement’s lawyers"
Congressman Phillip Burton is responsible for the modern pay to play lobbying money slosh-fest in Washington.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Burton
------In 1973, Burton allowed a bill to go to the floor without a "closed rule"—a stipulation that there could be no amendments proposed to it—for the first time since the 1920s.[2] The ending of the closed rule created an infusion of federal lobbyists at the Capitol building; the lobbyists targeted members of Congress to add funding for lobbyists' favorite projects into bills.[2] For this reason, David Frum wrote that Burton "created the modern Congress" more than anyone else.[2]
He must have had strong connections and sponsorships from well moneyed but Brave AI refuses to mention any names, except that he supported and was supported by unions
-----Burton was also a strong advocate for environmental protection, and he played a key role in the creation of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California. He was also involved in the establishment of the Point Reyes National Seashore, a protected area of coastline and wilderness in Northern California.
This is the era of expanding environmentalist movement ideas across the world, well financed by oil money and NGOs. We can thank this congressman for inviting Nancy Pelosi to grace us with her charm representing California in DC, according to this wiki page.
I bet the troubles and decimation of California can be traced to money surrounding so called environmentalists, which are really money and power entities.
Burgum is not to be trusted, hopefully someone else will take his place soon.
And what's the name of the designated wilderness area at Point Reyes National Seashore?
The Burton Wilderness.
🤢
Kalifornia will soon be inhabited by two kinds of people. The ultra rich and the dirt poor. Then the ultra rich will slowly “help” the poor to find housing…… in another state.
Oh, they have to find servants' quarters. Who is going to scrub their toilets and raise their kids?
Spnt several days walking around West Marin this week. The population is extremely white, and trending hard toward retirees. The people behind the retail counters, and the workers at the pre-school, are Latinas. It's very progressive.
Yeah, and they so do love themselves.
"We don't have a problem with our [X]. We threat them well and they know and appreciate it!"
Where have I encountered that attitude before?
What ever happened to MALT (Marin Agricultural Land Trust)? Twenty five years ago they had some balls. No mention of this on their website. Ugh.
I talked to MALT this week. Their view is that they focus on preserving privately owned land for agriculture and open space, and the lawsuit over public land has nothing to do with them. But they're working with some of the ranchers who are being pushed off the seashore, trying to find new land for them in the area. They're involved, but not politically involved.
Those two remaining ranchers are facing all kinds of problems due to being a dying breed, I suppose. Their costs will go up, and their market will diminish.
Maybe not.
Thanks for doing the leg-work on this and reporting your findings.
“Transitional support” = “We’ll help you, but only a little bit and only for a short while.”
We’ll buy you off for the lowest possible one-time payment, and then you’re outta here.
Mr. Bray, thank you for covering this story. Do you know the (true, original) source of the monies that were used to pay off the departing ranchers? It feels like a hefty sum. So, as near as I can tell from your reporting; here were a bunch of beautiful cattle ranchers, not bothering anyone, which had been around for a long time, with wonderful grass-fed cows, producing fantastic cheeses, and I assume milk and perhaps other dairy products (I’m not clear on whether all/some of the ranches produced grass-fed beef? Dairy ranches or beef ranches, or a combination of both?). Anyway, recently some ‘behind the curtain power that be’ apparently decided they had to go…so people could hike in a so-called parkland? Am I even remotely understanding this? I’m finding it literally impossible to believe that ‘someone’ doesn’t have a plan to develop this stunning area and make a shit-ton of money in the process. I just can’t think of any other explanation. Can the NPS sell the land in the future?
It's national park land, so there won't be much development on it, although the NPS is now talking about the possibility of building some lodging on the seashore. Money came from the Nature Conservancy, which got it like this:
"Making the rounds in the affluent Marin County enclave of Ross on Jan. 12, 2023, they stopped by the house of Dan Kalafatas and his wife Hadley Mullin. He is chairman of the global climate strategy company 3Degrees, and she is senior partner and senior managing director at the private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners. Together, they agreed early on to support the cause and to help fundraise and spread the word to their well-connected friends."
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/point-reyes-seashore-ranching-nature-conservancy/
Thank you for the additional info. I still can’t help wondering if there are any legal loopholes that would let NPS get away with selling it to developers in the future. Not that many laws are even respected or followed much these days. Many thanks for sharing this story.
nature conservancy has a long long history of corruption, giving the land to hi-end donors for mcmansions and the exact same kind of development they claimed to be fighting
So, ‘Nature Conservancy’ is kinda like ‘NGO’. This is the kind of thing I suspect will happen in this case. There’s no other logical explanation.
There's this https://datarepublican.com/nonprofit/?filter=nature+conservancy —The Nature Conservancy does get $138,572,433 in federal funds, but that's for all their programs.
Another nonprofit mentioned in the Press Democrat article that gets taxpayer money, according to datarepublican.com, is Resources Legacy Fund at $1,808,348.
According to the article, The Nature Conservancy raised the $32+ million to buy out the ranchers and resettle the employees. One question might be how much of that money was funneled through other nonprofits, and how much of that was taxpayer money.
Thanks for the info. All I know is, IMO it is absolutely wrong to force the cattle ranchers off of this land, just because you have enough money to bribe them.