Easement Protects Hancock Ranch

Donated Conservation Easements Eliminate Subdivision Plans

CODY, WY— January 8, 2007 — Cody landowners have donated conservation easements on the Hancock Ranch along the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River to The Nature Conservancy. The donations are a critical step in conserving the Clarks Fork, a designated “Wild and Scenic” river that flows through the Shoshone National Forest.

The donated easements protect all of the nearly 160 acres of the Hancock Ranch, once slated for subdivision into numerous small-acre parcels. The easements extinguish any possibility of future subdivisions and allow the ranch to maintain its agricultural heritage. Surrounded by federal lands and next to the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway and Beartooth Pass, the area is highly vulnerable to subdivision.

The scenic Hancock Ranch © TNC

John and Tish Winsor, owners of the Hancock Ranch, said, "This is just such a unique place on Earth that we felt it should be preserved and shared with future generations. To put 16 homes up here would alter wildlife corridors and destroy views from the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway."

Conservation of privately-held acreage along the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River is critical to providing wildlife habitat for elk, mule deer and moose. Meadows along the Clarks Fork are suitable habitat for the Columbia spotted frog, whose populations have dramatically decreased in the last 50 years.

“In the upper Clark Fork Valley we’re all surrounded by national forest, so making the remaining private in-holdings undeveloped is really important for future generations,” says Ed Spenser, who also has donated a conservation easement to The Nature Conservancy on his neighboring East B-4 Ranch. “Our ranch has been in the family since 1928. We wanted to protect the valley from being divided into small lots.”

The Clarks Fork River area historically consisted of numerous ranching operations, says Laura Bell, the Conservancy’s Northwest program director. Today the remaining private in-holdings along the Clarks Fork are highly desirable for subdivision. “Private landowners are the key to protecting Wyoming’s open lands and wildlife corridors. Conservation partnerships like this are a great way to keep precious landscapes like the Clarks Fork rural.”

The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working to protect the most ecologically important lands and waters around the world for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.