A swath of grassland that connects the Santa Rita Mountains and Las Cienegas National Conservation Area near Sonoita will be protected through a conservation easement obtained by the Arizona Land and Water Trust.
The easement covers 5,000 acres of the historic, family-owned Vera Earl Ranch and will help preserve an important wildlife corridor from “incompatible development,” the trust announced Thursday.
The ranch about 50 miles southeast of Tucson will continue to operate on the land as it has for decades, but the easement will ensure “permanent connectivity and improved genetic viability” for the resident pronghorn antelope population that occupies both sides of state Highway 83 just north of Sonoita, the trust said in the written statement.
Funds to establish the conservation easement came from the Department of Defense, the Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and the National Fish and Wildlife foundation through Walmart’s “Acres for America” program.
The Defense Department is interested in preserving the ranch because it will help maintain an area of low electromagnetic interference in the airspace surrounding Fort Huachuca.
The Vera Earl Ranch also provides habitat for threatened Chiricahua leopard frog and other sensitive and at-risk species.
A new conservation easement will protect grassland on the historic Vera Earl Ranch near Sonoita.
The Arizona Land and Water Trust entered into a similar deal with another Sonoita-area ranch in November, this one along state Highway 82 east of the Santa Cruz County community.
The trust now holds conservation easements on 3,800 acres of the historic Rain Valley Ranch to protect habitat for endangered species and a wildlife corridor that links the Huachuca, Mustang and Whetstone mountains.
The nonprofit has also been active elsewhere in Southern Arizona, recently announcing the purchase of another 281 acres of ranchland in Amado.
The trust is now halfway to its goal of acquiring the entire 1,310-acre Sopori Creek and Farm by 2024.
The property west of Interstate 19 includes more than a mile of the farm’s namesake, ephemeral creek, as well as 300 acres of irrigated farmland and the groundwater rights to sustain it.
The land 40 miles south of Tucson was once targeted for residential development.
The Vera Earl Ranch near Sonoita is about 50 miles southeast of Tucson.
The trust hopes to turn it into a grass bank for local ranchers and an agricultural apprentice program, where farmers can perfect sustainable growing techniques for arid climates — all while preserving an important riparian area and wildlife corridor.
The group needs to raise $1.5 million to buy the rest of the farm and another $2 million for restoration and the development of the onsite apprentice program, according to a fundraising email the trust sent out Thursday.
Since 1978, the group has used purchases, donations and conservation easements to preserve more than 67,000 acres in Southern Arizona as part of its mission to protect what it calls “vanishing western landscapes,” namely farms, ranches, wildlife habitat and the water that sustains them.
The trust already owns about 2,550 acres along Sopori Creek, which it bought in 2018 from a developer that once hoped to build a 6,800-home master-planned development straddling the line between Pima and Santa Cruz counties.
