EAST CANYON -- Travel along a bumpy dirt road that extends north from the popular community of Jeremy Ranch, and housing tracts and fancy subdivisions give way to wild spaces and groves of trees.
The development that has exploded along the back of the Wasatch Mountain Range seems far away, but there are reminders that urbanization is asserting itself on the spectacular canyons; a promise of homes coming soon posted on a trailer in one place, a sign advertising property for sale in another.This is the way to the Peaceful Valley Ranch, whose owners, along with those of another spread in the Chalk Creek area, have formally rejected the idea that development should take over.
On Monday, Gov. Mike Leavitt and Sen. Bob Bennett joined nearly 100 dignitaries, family members and state lands officials to celebrate the acquisition of two conservation easements that will protect nearly 11,000 acres of Utah ranch land in this area.
So from a quiet site just off Big Dutch Canyon, near an old family house positioned between to ridges called Big Bench and Little Bench, Leavitt noticed the smell and feel of aspen trees in fall and the sound of a nearby stream and said his efforts on behalf of open space "are clearly rewarded by this setting and this feeling."
The Trust for Public Land, a national land conservation organization based in Santa Fe., N.M., has transferred two conservation easements to the Utah Department of Natural Resources' Division of Forestry and State Lands. The projects are the first to receive protection under Utah's Forest Legacy Program, adopted in 1997.
The program is designed to help private landowners conserve forested land by entering into legal agreements that maintain traditional forest uses and block conversion of land for other purposes.
"This is the embodiment of the ethic that needs to capture all of us," Leavitt said. "We get one chance at this. If this generation does not step up, future generations will judge us harshly, and they should."
The ranch setting, stunning and colorful on Monday, is located on one easement, which covers 1,790 acres of the 7,300-acre Peaceful Valley Ranch, owned by Clayton MacFarlane Co. It is a working ranch and has been in the family for 100 years.
The Trust for Public Lands has also announced a $1.66 million capital campaign to complete protection of the remaining 5,510 acres of Peaceful Valley Ranch. As part of this campaign, the state's Department of Natural Resources will apply for money newly available through the LeRoy MacAllister Critical Lands Conservation Fund, now administered by the Quality Growth Commission.
The MacFarlanes are also involved in the second property, an 8,890-acre ranch owned by Haynes Land and Livestock Co. and located near Chalk Creek in the High Uintas Range of Summit County.
The property owners chose to donate a conservation easement worth $8.5 million to ensure the ranch would remain viable for future generations.
Grant Macfarlane and his wife, Shirley, have worked diligently to protect the Haynes ranch and said Monday's event marked a milestone with the project.
"We have been very apprehensive the last few years that we would be required to sell it, and that if we had to sell it, it would be developed," said Grant Macfarlane. "We've always hoped that East Canyon area would remain undeveloped."
With golden leaves falling on family members and officials gathered to celebrate the event, MacFarlane called the setting ideal. "The family is totally behind seeing that ranch remain pristine and primitive and undeveloped, and we never would have been able to do without these agencies that joined together."
Bennett applauded the variety of people and groups that made the land transaction possible.
"This is an example of a group of people who can talk about land issues without yelling at each other and buying nasty advertisements or making nasty speeches," he said.