As executive director of the Hill Country Conservancy, a non-profit dedicated to preserving the open spaces and heritage of the Texas Hill Country, George Cofer frequently talks with landowners about conservation easements. After negotiating three easements on Annandale Ranch in Uvalde County—which his family owns along with their cousins the McQuowns—he knows what he’s talking about. Annandale Ranch has been a working cattle ranch since the 1880s, and today is managed by George’s brother, Bill, and their cousin, Bruce McQuown, with both the past and the future in mind.

“I grew up around the ranch. If I wasn’t camping and canoeing, I was hunting or working. I was blessed with the opportunity to have that constant connection with nature. It caused me to realize how important conservation is. So, if there’s such a thing as a calling, mine is working to conserve the special places and rural heritage of the Hill Country.

“We’re trying to wrap up our final conservation easement at Annandale. We donated a 3,000-acre easement to The Nature Conservancy in1999, and then another on 1,000 acres in 2001. Now we’re negotiating a third easement on the final 7,500 acres of the ranch along the Frio River.

“Whether I’m wearing my landowner hat or my land trust hat, I learn more and more every day about conservation easements and how to make all these deals work. For me, it’s been wonderful to be on both sides of the table. I was a landowner before I was a conservationist, so I get property rights. When I talk with landowners I’m able to say, ‘our family has donated a conservation easement’ and we can talk openly and candidly about the process.

“This has always been a cattle ranch, and it always will be—at least in my lifetime. As my mom says about Bill, ‘he’s a cattleman and always will be.’ That’s what he knows and loves and he’s damn good at it. And because he’s good at it, he knows that you have to be prepared because the cattle business can be uncertain. So as a family, we’ve begun to have very serious conversations about moving in the direction of nature tourism. We’ve de-stocked some of our herds during times of drought and gotten rid of the sheep. We’ve kept the homes off the hill tops and tried to preserve the river-view corridor so that it will be available for tubing and kayaking forever. We’ve managed some pastures for white-tailed deer instead of cattle because hunting is a huge source of revenue for us. These things were all on our mind when we negotiated the conservation easements.

“One unexpected benefit of the conservation easement is that it really has helped our family to get to know one another better. We’re all different ages. Growing up we’d see each other maybe twice a year and never really got to know each other. Now that we’ve put the ranch into conservation, we share an idea of stewardship—a vision for the land and it has brought us much closer. Thanks to those conservation easements, we know as a family that no matter what happens in the future, there will always be a core section of this ranch that will remain in a natural state.“

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Dan Tharp (George Cofer [left] and Bill Cofer)