Arizona

More than 940,000 acres of Arizona’s working landscapes and majestic open spaces – including significant lands surrounding the Grand Canyon – have been permanently preserved through the Fund’s partnerships.

Cerbat Foothills Recreation

Made up of federal, state, county and local lands, Cerbat Foothills is an oasis of open space in the midst of urban development. The area provides needed respite from city life for thousands of people in northwestern Arizona. We acquired 1,167 acres of private land to add to Cerbat Foothills and transferred the property to the Bureau of Land Management.

Cibola National Wildlife Refuge

We partnered with the Hopi Tribe, Mohave County Arizona Water Authority and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to acquire 2,800 acres of nonproductive farmland from the Cibola Valley Drainage and Irrigation District adjacent to the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge. The property was identified in the federal Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Plan as an important habitat area for the endangered razorback sucker and other wildlife. It will be donated to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to enlarge the refuge.

Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument

Located on the northern rim of the Grand Canyon, the Parashant National Monument is a marvelous testament to the power of nature, providing visitors with a view of 150 miles of deep canyons, rugged mountains and isolated buttes. With support from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, we worked with the willing owners and ranching families of the Bar Ten Ranch and Pakoon Springs to safeguard 640 acres as an addition to the monument. The arrangement also retired more than 75,000 acres of unproductive public land grazing leases, which effectively protects more than 90,000 acres of inholdings administered by the Bureau of Land Management.

Kane and Two Mile Ranches on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon

The protection of the Kane and Two Mile Ranches demonstrates our unique brand of conservation, one that relies on creativity and collaboration rather than confrontation to address the nation’s growing need to balance economic and environmental objectives.

Although much of the land engulfing the giant crevasse has been protected, huge parcels of land here are still vulnerable to subdivision, development and drought.
An expansive inholding that connected three national monuments, two national recreation areas and eight wilderness areas, the privately owned Kane and Two Mile ranches, spanned just over 1,200 acres and controlled grazing permits across nearly 900,000 acres of adjacent federal lands. At the same time, decades of grazing operations had taken their toll on the area’s most sensitive lands.

To preserve the region’s ranching heritage, wildlife habitat and striking scenery, we partnered with the Grand Canyon Trust to purchase the Kane and Two Mile ranches, within view of Arizona’s famed Vermilion Cliffs. Together with the Trust, we created North Rim Ranch LLC to own and run the ranches and hired a third-generation rancher to oversee the operation. We brought together neighboring ranchers, public agencies and tribal officials to develop a management plan for the property that would reduce grazing pressures on sensitive lands, restore critical wildlife habitat and maintain part of the land as a traditional cattle ranch. The two groups also convened a science advisory council to assess the grazing allotments associated with the ranches, which will help land managers conserve and protect the fragile landscape.

Funding to support the effort was provided by the Richard King Mellon Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation through its partnership with Wal-Mart and the Acres for America program.

Tonto National Forest

Cave Creek, only twenty-five miles north of the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, is one of the few perennial streams in the Upper Sonoran Desert. Cottonwood, willow, sycamore, and ash trees as well as bulrushes and cattails grow in this riparian area, in sharp contrast to the arid uplands of the watershed. We partnered with the landowners and the U.S. Forest Service to add 28 acres of this oasis to the Tonto National Forest, including areas where Hohokam people lived about 800 years ago.

For financing, the team tapped a little known-federal land conservation program, the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act of 2000. Under this act, the Bureau of Land Management can sell hard-to-manage parcels of public land and lands with significant residential or commercial value, to generate funds to support land conservation. Across the West, this resource promises to extend land conservation's horizon.