Nevada mining town embraces environmental group's ranch plan

Environmentalists are taking over a faded Nevada mining town, but many locals don't seem to mind. The Nature Conservancy has become the largest private landowner in the Nye County community of Beatty, where the national organization and its neighbors are working to create a preserve for sensitive desert wildlife and a destination for outdoor enthusiasts a nearly two-hour drive from Las Vegas. The conservancy's latest acquisition is a 900-acre working cattle ranch at the headwaters of the Amargosa River that could one day become a living laboratory for conservation work. The $2 million purchase more than doubles the conservancy's already extensive holdings along a lush ribbon of riparian habitat known as the Oasis Valley, about 120 miles northwest of the Las Vegas Strip. "I don't have a concern with that like I might have 10 years ago, because they've demonstrated they're willing to work with us. That's important to us," David Spicer, a conservancy neighbor, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal . Spicer is a rancher, miner and businessman who has lived in the Beatty area nearly all his life. He's also the leader of a decades-long campaign to protect the native Amargosa toad and keep it off the endangered species list. He called the Nature Conservancy an important partner from the beginning...MORE