The Kinsey family bought a stretch of California countryside in 1914 that would eventually become a 6,625-acre working cattle ranch. After more than a century, the family has taken steps to ensure the property remains protected from development. The place is for cattle, forests, rivers and wildlife rather than new development.The Northcoast Regional Land Trust (NRLT) has completed a conservation easement on the Kinsey Ranch in Benbow, California, according to a report by North Coast Journal. This permanently protects the agricultural, forest and watershed values while allowing the family to continue working it as a ranch.The agreement does not mean the family no longer owns the property. But the easement permanently places restrictions on how the property can be developed, allowing it to remain working land even if it changes hands in the future.
A ranch built over generations
In 1914, Charles and Alice Kinsey bought the land that later became the 6,625-acre Kinsey Ranch. The land sits in Benbow, in southern Humboldt County, along the East Branch of the South Fork Eel River. Their grandson David Johnson became the person at the heart of the conservation effort. Their descendants continued to work the land, and today, more than 4,500 acres of the ranch are used for a cow-calf grazing operation. The property also contains forestland managed for sustainable timber production. But agriculture is only part of what makes the ranch significant.More than five miles of the East Branch of the South Fork Eel River run through the property. There are more than 10 miles of smaller streams. The waterways provide habitat for endangered salmon and other wildlife. The conservation easement placed on the ranch also protects farmland soils, wetlands and riparian habitat, the areas alongside rivers and streams that are particularly important for plants and animals.“It’s a great example of conservation and agricultural communities coming together to keep working lands protected and productive while preserving important habitat for the wildlife that depend on them. We’re grateful to the Kinsey family and our project partners, including the Department of Conservation and Strategic Growth Council, for helping create an outcome that benefits agricultural use, wildlife, and conservation for generations to come,” Zach Wenderott, NRLT Project Manager, said in a release.
The family wanted to protect it
The conservation project took years to complete and was driven in part by David Johnson, a member of the family that had owned and worked the ranch for generations. David worked on the ranch since his grandparents, Charles and Alice Kinsey, bought it in 1914. Though David passed away in 2024, prior to the easement’s completion, this was his biggest dream: to protect the land.“My brother really wanted to conserve it. If this hadn’t been funded, our kids couldn’t afford to keep it. But now even if they do sell it, it will be protected as our family had wanted. It’s too gorgeous and big a property to just let go to development,” Marjorie Johnson Yates, whose family has owned the ranch for three generations, told the outlet.The location of the Kinsey Ranch also adds to its conservation value. It is located within a few miles of NRLT’s completed Wagner Ranch and Sproul Creek conservation easements. Other projects are also underway nearby. Along with this land, these projects will build a corridor of protected working lands and habitat in the Benbow and Garberville area.“We all know that with time and money, damage to the land can be repaired and restored to its natural state. But it is much better to preserve, rather than to have to restore,” Tom Strobel, who represented the Kinsey family throughout the process, said.The conservation easement closes a chapter that began when the Kinsey family purchased the property more than 110 years ago. The ranch will continue as a working ranch. Cattle can continue to graze its grasslands, timber can continue to be managed and the rivers can continue to run through the property. But its future remains secure. Whether the ranch stays within the family or eventually passes to someone else, the conservation protections will remain. The decision made by one generation has therefore created a lasting safeguard for the generations that follow.Meanwhile, the NRLT plans to honour the Kinsey and Johnson families’ multi-generational dedication to the land during the Boots & Birkenstocks Annual Celebration on 11 October.
