For Sierra Valley ranchers, help to resist developers tougher to find

As the pressure to sell his 320-acre Loyalton ranch grew, Goicoechea resorted to a state law that protects farms and ranches from annexation, eminent domain and other development demands. "Developers offered money first, and when I turned them down they turned to threats," Goicoechea recalled. "I could have cashed out very easily. "But ranches like this aren't happening everywhere, and I've never wanted anything else. I have no objection to the development – just leave me out of it." Goicoechea's story is similar to others around the 300,000-acre Sierra Valley, the largest alpine valley in the Sierra Nevada and one of the biggest in the nation. Many other ranchers and farmers pressured to sell their land to developers have turned to conservation easements and state conservation laws to keep their land in agriculture and to preserve the bucolic, 19th-century character of Sierra Valley. But now with many funding sources drying up, conservation groups and ranchers – once at odds over how the land should be used but now working together to protect it – are wondering how much longer the valley can hold out...SacramentoBee