Date Creek Ranch
Combined efforts protect the present and preserve the future
“There’s no more land being made,” Becky Ruffner, executive director of the Central Arizona Land Trust, states over the phone. It’s something we all know, but we forget.
In 1989, a bulldozer started carving out home sites at the base of Thumb Butte in Prescott. For those who aren’t familiar, Thumb Butte is more than a landmark. To the locals, its unique towering shape provides a bearing equivalent to the needle of a compass. February through mid-July, the cliff face is reserved for nesting peregrines. After they move on, climbers replace them. The expansive views as you approach its base are the well-earned reward for those who make their way up the steep, switchbacking east side of Trail 33. It is an inseparable part of Prescott.
The dozer’s arrival launched a “Save the Butte” campaign that led to the creation of the Central Arizona Land Trust (CALT), the first land trust in this area. Public outcry and CALT’s efforts eventually resulted in a conservation easement that ensures a total of seven acres, including the eastern flank, is forever prevented from undergoing substantial development. Ruffner says, “Conservation easements are a tool for the longterm protection of private property; it’s the highest and best use of private property rights.”
There are certain standards private land must meet before it can be placed into a conservation easement. It must be of a significant size that it provides a clear public benefit. If the owner hopes to receive a tax benefit, the property is further evaluated based on its natural and agricultural resources and potential for outdoor recreation and open space preservation.
“There will never be any more open space for agricultural land than there is now.” —Becky Ruffner
The process is not quick; navigating the bureaucracy can take from two to five years. “It’s a very intensive process, but the whole point of it is to ensure the land trust community is operating with the highest ethical standards. Working with landowners to protect their property in perpetuity involves a high level of earned trust.”
Conservation easements are often mistakenly perceived as a complete forfeiting of rights. Ruffner is clear that is not the case. Ranchers can still ranch. Farmers can still farm. She explains, “When an owner is interested in placing their land into a conservation easement, an initial assessment determines whether it will qualify. During this time, any future development [such as adding an extra barn or building an extra homesite] is discussed.”
Ruffner stresses that CALT only works with willing landowners. Among the willing are the owners of Date Creek Ranch, Kimberley Knight, Stefan Wolf, and their children. Located near Congress, the property’s history goes back to the 1870s but was bought by Knight’s father in 1966. Kimberley returned to the ranch in 1997 and it is now home to three generations, the youngest member being four months old.
Date Creek Ranch has a legacy of stewardship based on a broader definition of good and a dedication to doing what is best. The owners describe the operation as “an environmentally healthy, diverse, and socially responsible cattle ranch that strives for a healthy and happy atmosphere for wildlife, people, and livestock.” The efforts that back up the statement include planned grazing, carbon sequestration through soil management, and avoiding the use of pesticides, chemicals, and herbicides for over four decades. It is that history of care that qualifies the property to be a conservation easement.
The goal of a conservation easement is to protect private land with valuable natural resources from harmful development. “Pioneers picked the best spots to homestead,” Knight explains. “They found water and fertile land and they homesteaded that, so the prime land is often the private land.”
The owners were first introduced to conservation easements through a fellow rancher and friend. Wolf says, “The whole idea has been hanging around in the back of our heads for 10 or 15 years.” But it wasn’t a possibility until a few years ago when other family partners were bought out. Knight adds, “When we first started the process in 2022, I thought a conservation easement meant ‘We agree we’re not going to build any extra buildings or subdivide the property,’ but there’s a whole lot more to it than that. We had to come up with a resource management plan we feel comfortable with because once a year somebody comes in and monitors to make sure that you’re following the agreement. We had to work through all this wording. It was very concerning, but I think we’ve figured it out.”
Date Creek Ranch is an anomaly. Through careful resource management, sharp business acumen, and a lot of hard work, it supports three families on the amount of land it takes the average cattle rancher to support one. “What we do here is extremely unusual,” Knight says. “The reason we are able to do it is because we are very creative in what enterprises we are doing and we think outside the box. The conservation easement puts a little bit of a box around us so we have to decide what we’re willing to give up.”
Entering into such an agreement is challenging for property owners because it requires them to predict the future. Limiting the future probability of a parking lot or subdivision must be simultaneously considered with the family’s needs. Wolf explains, “For us, we have three generations on the ranch, so we have to think in 50- or 100-year terms. If you go back 25 years, nobody would have thought about the internet as the major force in our economy or our lives. Nobody knew what Google was. It’s difficult to say what’s going to happen.” Knight adds, “In 30 years, maybe the kids decide they want to put a restaurant out here because that’s what they want to do and they think they could make money and stay on the land by doing it. Well, we’re limiting all that with a conservation easement. It limits our creativity and so trying to find the balance has been a little scary.”
Both Knight and Wolf describe the process, now in its third year, as “arduous.” Details must be carefully examined from all angles. The hypothetical game of “what if ” is never-ending. Many different needs must be met, and it can only be done so through compromise. Though the Forest Legacy Program, funded through the US Forest Service, provides the money for the purchase, regulations require a government entity to hold the deed. Getting all of the players and pieces to line up successfully is reminiscent of solving a Rubik’s cube.
Despite the endless meetings, the back-and-forths, and the hours of soul searching that accompany facing life’s uncertainties while voluntarily releasing some control of the present in hopes of a better future, Knight and Wolf remain committed. Knight says she “would love to see more people doing it. We really need people to do the conservation easements on private land so it doesn’t get turned into another subdivision because oftentimes it’s some of the prettiest, most fertile land around.”
Ruffner echoes Knight’s sentiments. “The private land that is productive agriculturally and provides public benefit … that is scenic, historic, riparian … those special places where people go to recreate and where food is grown. Those places are under unprecedented pressure to become roads and houses and condominiums and freeways and shopping centers. There will never be any more open space for agricultural land than there is now.”
Adds Kaolin Randall, board president of CALT, “The threats to open space are unrelenting.” She explains one of the biggest challenges CALT faces is perceived value. “When the public thinks of open space, they think about how they’ll get to use it. CALT works to preserve privately owned land. It will not be accessible to the public unless the landowner chooses. The value of this type of open space is difficult to comprehend: If we can’t see it and we can’t use it, what’s the point? But the benefits are many: wildlife corridors and habitat connectivity, less strain on natural resources, and ultimately the sustained relationship of the land stewards with the land. They are not stripping it of its resources; they are working with the land so that they can continue to ranch, farm, and feed their communities. This symbiotic relationship with the land is one that, if lost, will affect our food supply and our identity in predictable and unforeseen ways.”
