By Charles Thieriot
Many leaders in the Sacramento Valley will be joining us at Rancho Llano Seco this Friday to celebrate Earth Day and our special relationship with the water, sun and land.
Earth Day is a special time to honor and celebrate our environmental achievements, to raise awareness on the need to protect Earth’s natural resources for future generations and to think about the work ahead to make the Earth a better place. I am inspired by this quote from cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead: “Earth Day is the first holy day which transcends all national borders, yet preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time belts, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord, is devoted to the preservation of the harmony in nature and yet draws upon the triumphs of technology, the measurement of time, and instantaneous communication through space.”
At Rancho Llano Seco we celebrate this harmony with nature and honor the unique interplay of water, sun and land that makes our region special. Our ranch is bordered by the Sacramento River and Chico Creek. Their various sloughs and oxbows wind their way between our fields and pastures creating habitat and bringing life to farmed and wild plants and animal alike.
The Wintu, Maidu, and Yana tribes have long been the caretakers of our Sacramento Valley and its headwaters. They lived in a balance with the land that we now work towards returning. I encourage us all to look to our native neighbors for leadership in the areas of sustainability, regeneration and stewardship. The more we can look to the descendants of the cultures that found a balance in our area for guidance, the faster we will evolve back to a balance that all of our forebearers had with their environments at one time in some place on the planet.
Rancho Llano Seco has a rich history of balancing community, agriculture, livestock husbandry and conservation. The name Llano Seco means dry plain in Spanish, and comes from the high ground on the ranch where our cattle and those of our neighbors could find shelter during a flood.
We are in partnership with several conservation groups and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife. We work together to restore native grasslands, wetlands, oak savannas and riparian forests to preserve and grow the diversity of wildlife and wildlife habitat on the Rancho. Our unique canal system works in concert with the Sacramento River and its offshoots to bring surface water to all corners of the ranch. Our livestock represents an evolution in our relationship with the land that echoes the past and is a sustainable plan for the future.
As we look to the future, we are excited to listen and learn from our land and to activate our landscape by spreading water out and slowing it down. This floodplain recharge mimics the natural system that created our fertile valley and helps mobilize the special combination of land, water, and sun. Practically, this water serves multiple benefits year-round by allowing farmers and ranchers to cultivate crops for humans during the spring and summer, provide habitat for wild birds, reptiles, and other fauna in the fall, and provide food for migratory birds and native fish species in the winter. This holistic water management brings our magnificent Earth to life through the careful interaction of water, sun and land.
