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BLT eNotes August, 2021
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The Szecsey/Schmidt/Zweig Land Partnership
Bodega Land Trust Conservation Easement
Interview with Christopher and Mary Szecsey
by Delia Moon
June 2021
“It was not just to preserve and protect this land as it is now,” Christopher Szecsey said to me, “but to maintain and enhance its ecological values for the future.” So, in 2019 his land partnership with Mary Szecsey, Heidi Schmidt, and Peter Zweig created a Conservation Easement (CE) with the Bodega Land Trust (BLT), legally recorded in 2020 to protect and improve the natural and undeveloped areas of mixed forest, grasslands, rock canyon, and natural resources forever.
The CE is in a belt of Coast Redwoods (Sequoia Sempervirens) in the headwaters of the Dutch Bill Creek area of the Russian River Watershed to the north of Coleman Valley Road. It is a wonderful area of forest and grasslands, with one pond, two canyons, six seasonal streams, and a waterfall. It is one of three remaining large parcels in the immediate Occidental area, bordered on both sides by similar large parcels, all three together forming one larger ecosystem. The basically rectangular Two Sisters property as it is called, totals 74.26 acres of which a 50-acre portion is under the protection of the CE and the remaining 24.26 is reserved for the residential use of the two families comprising the land partnership.
Although I had a hat and was prepared to get my feet wet walking the property in the dense fog, I met indoors with Christopher and Mary to chat about the CE. Their house, open and friendly as they are, is set in a field with a semicircle of dense mixed forest to one side. As I admired their lush vegetable garden from the back porch, Christopher told me if it had been a clear day, I could have seen from there all the way to Mt. St. Helena across the Napa Valley. Each room in their pleasant house is hung with beautiful fabrics, mementos of their life in Asia, the Pacific Islands, and other countries where they worked and visited. Christopher started his international development work in the Peace Corps in Ecuador, then with Mary they worked and lived in Nepal with UNDP for 2 years, followed by work with an international NGO and local NGOs in the Pacific Islands for 3 years, and then followed by 6 years in Indonesia, before returning home to settle on the land.
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Given this background, as well as the four landowners’ previous long-term residence and work with the Farallones Institute (now the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center which borders their property to the east), it is not surprising that the land partners— Christopher, Mary, Mary’s sister Heidi Schmidt and her husband Peter Zweig— would seek to enhance and protect this land which had been inhabited by Native tribes for thousands of years and was owned by the Blaney family for two hundred. Over the last 36 years, much land management work has been carried-out by the land partners, especially Peter and Heidi, in removing invasive plants, such as scotch broom, thistles, watsonia, etc., to improve the land. Next up are plans for fire mitigation and fuel reduction. It is all about conserving the natural resources and stewarding the land!
The four land partners purchased the land in 1985 while Christopher and Mary were living in Nepal; they later joined Peter and Heidi on the property in 1993. Together, they set about managing the land, already a jewel in the Dutch Bill Watershed. They created a ten-acre foot pond with the renowned permaculture educator, Bill Mollison, and volunteers from his workshop at OAEC. They have also planted a thousand redwood seedlings, thanks to the local nonprofit Forests Unlimited, and its volunteer force. Unfortunately, the limited rainfall of two winters has impacted the survival rate.
Initially, they imagined that they would create an easement just to protect and improve these newly planted redwood seedlings and the legacy stands of mixed forest oak, madrone, fir, buckeye, and bay that were already on the property; however, their easement plans soon expanded to protect the pond, streams, and canyon waterfall. They then expanded further to include the coastal prairie grasslands, bordering OAEC, to protect its western flank from “development”.
The installation of a vineyard on the neighboring property to the west spurred their motivation to preserve the land as well, and as stipulated in their CE, prevent vineyard development on the CE. Although originally organic, the vineyard was almost sold to a company that uses chemicals. Fortunately, a conservation-minded new owner stepped in at the last minute to purchase the vineyard and has now removed almost all the original vineyard, except for the original block, and is also restoring the grasslands, committed as she is to resource conservation and ecosystem management.
The land partners of the Two Sisters property considered it vital to protect and preserve the native grasses, the watershed with its salmonoids down below in Dutch Bill Creek, the wildlife (including bears), to create a safe corridor for their passage, and to maintain and enhance the forest and grasslands. To that end, the CE document with the BLT not only protects conservation values in the protected area but also contains language, unusual, and perhaps unique to Land Trust conservation easements, that explicitly allows management practices to remain available to the landholders, in consultation with BLT, to further enhance these values. Among these enhancements, already being practiced, is the ongoing removal of invasive species, and forest enhancement, such as thinning, removal of Douglas firs invading the redwood forests and grasslands, and possible future use of a controlled burn of fire-feeding underbrush.
I am grateful for the energy and the foresight of this impressive land partnership; grateful to have been a part of this land protection movement myself, and grateful to organizations such as the Bodega Land Trust for making such gifts possible. The more people who follow the example set by forward-looking property holders the more land we shall leave preserved for our future generations, to safeguard our natural resources and their dependent wildlife, especially now given the climate change crisis underway.
-Delia Moon
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The Great Bodega Quilt Raffle
For 40 years, Bodega quilters have been making gorgeous quilts, one every year, to raffle off to support wothy local causes. For many of those years the Bodega Fire Department has been the recipient of the Bodega Quilt Raffle proceeds.
This year, Bodega Land Trust has been honored in memory of the passing of two of their cherished leaders in the last two years, Sandy Sharp (2019) and Don Sherer (2020). Proceeds will go to BLT and the Bodega Volunteer Fire Department.
Because of this the 40th Bodega Quilt is very special and very beautiful. You see below the poster made up of the individual pieces before being assembled into the quilt.
You can support BLT by purchasing tickets when you see the Quilt on display at local Markets at the pricing noted on the flyer below. You can also purchase tickets through our Donate button! If you do this, we would appreciate your donation of $20 or more and for every $20 donation, you will receive 24 chances to win the beautiful Bodega Quilt.
To buy raffle tickets by Donating to BLT, just use the Donate Now! feature on the BLT Website homepage. When you enter an amount and select Donate, you can choose to pay with PayPal or with a Debit/Credit Card, and we will take it from there. When the raffle drawing is done, and if you win, we will contact you using your Donation contact information.
Bodega Land Trust greatly appreciates your generous donations!
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Join Us at the 2021
Occidental Community
Farmers' Market
The 2021 Occidental Community Farmers' Market season started Friday, May 14, and is open every Friday from 4pm to dusk, through October 29.
This year non-profit informational tables are again allowed (state rules kept them away due to Covid-19 in 2020) and BLT was at the first Market evening and will be there every three weeks through the entire Farmers' Market season.
Come to the Market and say hello on the following dates, between 4 and 6pm:
August 27
September 17
October 8
October 29
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