Rescuing the Range: Eternal Open Space

Nevada Magazine, July/August 2007
Written by David Bunker

Bently Agrowdynamic's cattle at River Fork Ranch © Anne Thomas/TNC

"River Fork Ranch sits at the historical epicenter of modern Nevada.  Just down the toad, the Genoa Bar's faded wood sign reads "Nevada's Oldest Thirst Parlor."  The neighboring ranch is "Ranch One," purportedly the first land claim in the state.  The ranch is a wetland-rich pasture split by two forks of the Carson River. 

Despite the uncertainty that surrounds Carson Valley's future, one thing is assured: River Fork Ranch will never be developed.  Duane Petite, the Carson River project manager with The Nature Conservancy, points down the languid winter waters of the Carson River across the ranch to the snow-cloaked peaks of the Carson Iceberg Wilderness in the distance. 'We're looking at the headwaters of the east and west forks of the Carson River here,' he says.

A gently westward tilting of Carson Valley's floor has blessed the ranch with a rare wealth - a jackpot of streams and sloughs abnormal for Nevada.  The water makes the property coveted by Nevada newcomers who have moved to the area for the open expanses and mountain views.  But The Nature Conservancy assures that the current residents of the River Fork Ranch - red-tailed hawks, northern leopard frogs, western pond turtles, and cranes - are not displaced.  'The Nature Conservancy considers inappropriate real-estate development the number-one threat to the health of the river and riparian, wetland, and wet-meadow habitat,' Petite says. 

The Nature Conservancy purchased the River Fork Ranch in 2000, and the Bureau of Land Management holds an easement on the property that ensures it will remain open space.  But the purchase doesn't mean the ranch has become just a nature preserve.  It is still a working cattle ranch, grazed by Carson Valley's Bently Agrowdynamics.  'Our goal is to show that progressive agriculture techniques and preservation can go together,' Petite says.  The ranch is, and will always be, a nature-ranching preserve - 805 acres of Carson Valley virtually guaranteed to remain unchanged."

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