2025: A Year in Pictures
December 5, 2025
As we close out 2025, we’re looking back at a year of significant milestones, evolving challenges, and inspiring collaboration—from historic land protection to community resilience, from supporting next-generation farmers to connecting close to 1,400 people to the landscape.
What ties all these moments together? A simple truth: farmland conservation isn’t just about protecting acres—it’s about protecting possibility. The possibility that the next generation can afford to farm. That ranchers can weather climate challenges. That working lands continue feeding our community while sustaining wildlife, clean water, and carbon-rich soils. These photos tell the story of how we’re making that possible, together.
Thank you for all you do for MALT.
January: Parks Home Ranch Protected Forever
We started 2025 with exciting news—the protection of the 177-acre Parks Home Ranch in Tomales. This historic property, home to five generations of the Parks family since the 1880s, became our newest conservation success story.
With funding from Marin County’s Measure A and the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, we permanently protected this fertile ground where Stemple Creek Ranch now grazes cattle and where future plans include sheep herds, vegetable plots, and educational programs for young farmers.
The Parks Home Ranch easement marked a major milestone: MALT and our partners have now invested more than $112 million in Marin County farmland conservation since 1980. This investment represents 59,000 acres of productive agricultural land, thriving ranch families, and a landscape that feeds our community while fighting climate change.
Find the full story
February: Standing with Our Agricultural Community
In February, the Point Reyes National Seashore settlement announced an end to decades of historic ranching on the Seashore, displacing ranchers, farmworkers, and community members living on the federal land. MALT responded by leaning into its work with Marin County and a coalition of community organizations on interim and permanent housing solutions, updating easement language to better support farmworker housing, and partnering with ranchers who are transitioning from the Seashore.
For 45 years, MALT has protected Marin’s farmland. We believe preserving agriculture today also includes addressing the needs of the people who make it possible.
Read more
March: Fighting Back Against Invasive Species
In the Walker Creek watershed, we partnered with Fire Forward, UC Berkeley, and local ranchers to experiment with something new: using prescribed fire to combat gorse, a highly invasive plant consuming valuable rangeland across Marin County. Watching flames reach 30 feet into the air as they consumed the thorny invader was dramatic—but the real breakthrough was what we learned about timing.
While some sections didn’t burn completely because the plants were too wet in late spring, the experiment revealed that winter burns in December or January offer the best window for gorse management. These insights won’t stay on just one ranch—they’ll shape restoration efforts across the region, helping ranchers reclaim native grassland from one of California’s most stubborn invaders.
It’s the kind of collaborative, experimental work that defines good land stewardship: trying, learning, and sharing what works.
Find our burning insights
May: Investing in the Next Generation
Our fourth round of small grants awarded $200,000 to five agricultural operations trailblazing new climate-smart practices. Among them was Jenna Coughlin, a Coast Miwok shepherd whose business Shepherds of the Coast is redefining what grazing can accomplish.
With $15,000 from MALT, Jenna expanded her prescribed grazing work—using sheep as precision instruments for land healing, wildfire risk reduction, and native plant restoration. “My hope is to demonstrate the validity of prescribed grazing—to show how ecology and agriculture can go together in a really profound way,” she told us.
Her story represents something bigger: next-generation farmers finding new pathways to economic viability while healing the land.
Hear their stories
September: Charting MALT’s Future
In September, we launched our Strategic Framework 2025-2030, the result of extensive conversations with farmers, ranchers, donors, and community partners. The message was clear: land protection is still the foundation, but it’s no longer enough on its own.
Rising costs, generational transitions, housing challenges, and climate impacts threaten the viability of family farming operations. Our new framework addresses this reality head-on—deepening land stewardship, planning for climate resilience, and leveraging partnerships to tackle housing and land access barriers. It’s about ensuring the 58,917 acres we’ve protected continue to support thriving agricultural communities for generations to come.
Find more
Spring & Fall: Connecting Community to the Land
Throughout spring and fall 2025, MALT brought close to 1,400 community members onto protected ranchlands through our public events program. These guided walks offered rare access to working landscapes—many of them protected with Measure A funds—where participants could see firsthand how agriculture, wildlife habitat, and watershed health coexist on the same ground.
From spring wildflower walks to fall ridge hikes, these experiences connected people to the story behind their local food system and the landscapes that define Marin County. When you stand on a ridgeline looking across thousands of acres of protected ranchland, you understand why this work matters—not just for ranchers, but for everyone who calls the Bay Area home.
Stay tuned for spring events
Year-Round: Stewardship in Action
Throughout 2025, our land stewardship program continued investing in ranch resilience, part of $4.2 million in total stewardship funding MALT has invested across Marin County. From rotational grazing systems to creek restoration to wildlife habitat enhancement, these investments prove that working lands are environmental powerhouses when supported properly.
From enhanced rotational grazing systems to innovative dairy practices to water system rehabilitations for conservation grazing on public lands, these investments demonstrate that supporting ranchers with the right tools creates benefits that ripple across entire watersheds.
Looking Ahead to 2026
This year taught us that evolution isn’t a departure from our mission—it’s how we honor it. Phyllis Faber and Ellen Straus brought ranchers and conservationists together 45 years ago to fight suburban development. Today, we’re bringing that same bold, community-centered approach to new challenges: economic pressures, climate resilience, housing access, and generational transitions.
58,917 acres protected—our foundation of farmland conservation is strong. Together, we’ve protected more than half of Marin’s privately owned productive agricultural land and invested over $112 million in conservation. Now it’s time to build on that foundation—supporting the people, practices, and partnerships that will keep this landscape thriving.
Thank you for being part of this journey. Your support made every moment in these photos possible.
Here’s to the year ahead!
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