A Peek at a Natural Treasure : 1,200-Acre Conservancy to Open Its Gates to the Public for a Day

One of South County’s least known environmental gems, long the preserve of cattle and little known to the public, soon will be open for a single day to the general public.

The 1,200 pristine acres, a mosaic of grasslands, chaparral, coastal sage, sycamores and oaks, is valued for its diversity of plants and animals and provides a glimpse of how South County looked many years ago.

Animals with now-diminished populations, including the cactus wren, the San Diego horned lizard and the orange throated whiptail lizard, have been seen in the area, as have many birds of prey, such as the red-tail and red-shouldered Cooper’s hawks and great horned and barn owls. Mule deer, coyotes and bobcats abound.

The rugged terrain is part of the vast O’Neill family cattle ranch in Rancho Mission Viejo near San Juan Capistrano and is being preserved in its natural state by the Rancho Mission Viejo Land Conservancy.

The conservancy, a nonprofit organization, was granted an easement on the property about a year ago by members of the Richard O’Neill family as a condition of county approval for development of other family-owned land.

Under the terms of the conservancy, the public will be allowed on the property only on a controlled basis so the natural treasures won’t be trampled. Cattle, however, will continue to graze the grasslands as they have for more than 100 years.

Unlike other large parks in the region, including O’Neill Regional and Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness parks, no campgrounds or restrooms are expected to be built on the conservancy land.

While a public access plan has yet to be drafted, board members said they believe most visitors to the wilderness preserve will make appointments as members of small study groups to be guided by conservancy personnel or volunteers knowledgeable about the area’s flora and fauna.

But conservancy officials realize that they need the moral and financial support of the public.

“We want the public to know it is there. We don’t want it to be a secret,” said Gilbert Aguirre, president of the conservancy board of directors and senior vice president of cattle operations at Rancho Mission Viejo.

So what Aguirre calls “an open house” is planned for next Saturday, Oct. 12. For a gate admission of $6 per adult, $2 per child or $18 per family, visitors will be treated to hayride and walking tours led by naturalists. Also planned are bluegrass music and a barbecue in the shade of a sycamore grove.

While the event is billed as a “fund-raiser,” the conservancy says it hopes to generate more goodwill than money from the event.

“The real purpose is to get the public out to see it,” said Mike Evans, co-owner of a native plant nursery and a conservancy board member.

Last week, Evans gazed with admiration at the sunny slopes of a canyon that were mottled with prickly pear and shrubs.

“The different plant communities are in a patchwork pattern, and the big picture creates a mosaic, which is the sign of a very healthy ecosystem,” he said. Ray Belknap, executive director of the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County, said hiking through the new Orange County preserve is like looking through a kaleidoscope: at every turn appears a different combination of trees and shrubs.

Belknap, who is acting as a consultant to the fledgling Orange County conservancy organization, noted that throughout the nation similar organizations are forming with grass-roots support to preserve natural areas that otherwise would be lost to development.

The Land Trust Alliance, a Washington-based clearinghouse of information on land conservancies, reports that between 1980 and the end of 1990 the number of land trusts in the country more than doubled to 889 from 429.

Jean Hocker, executive director of the alliance, called the growth of conservancies a real grass-roots movement.

“They don’t see government in a position to protect open space, because it either lacks the funds or the will and people who want to do something,” she said.

The Rancho Mission Viejo Conservancy was championed by the O’Neill family, who proposed it to the county as a way to satisfy an open-space obligation for the Talega planned community development in San Clemente.

Tony Moiso, a member of the family and chief executive of the Santa Margarita Co. that owns Rancho Mission Viejo, where the new land conservancy is located, said the family believes that a private conservancy can do a better job at operating open space than the county.

Moiso said he finds it frustrating that the county is still struggling to develop a public access plan for 2,200 acres that the O’Neills donated in 1982 for expansion of Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park and O’Neill Regional Park.

County officials explained that proposed development of new campgrounds in Caspers has been stymied by the danger of mountain lions, and plans for development of some of the land have been delayed by environmental concerns.

“Private conservation is always better than government conservation,” said Lloyd Kiff, an ornithologist on the Rancho Mission Viejo Conservancy Board. “It is not the fault of the individuals in government but of the regulatory levels that slow things down.”

The O’Neill family will continue to own the land in the conservancy and provide security for it as part of its ranching operation. Moreover, the family has appointed five of the nine members on the conservancy’s governing board, including Aguirre, several naturalists and Donna O’Neill, a family member who is a staunch conservationist.

In addition, the county has appointed three board members, and the city of San Clemente, in which 200 acres of the preserve are situated, has appointed one member.

When the conservancy was formed in June, 1990, the family established a $500,000 endowment to support its operations. But conservancy directors say that will not be sufficient to fund the research programs the conservancy envisions.

The conservancy is now collecting and reviewing historic studies of the area’s plants and animals.

“We are just getting our feet wet,” Evans said. “We are doing an inventory of what has been done and what needs more study.”

In addition, conservancy officials said they are planning to monitor the region’s evolution by taking snapshots over the years to document change in the wildlife, including the possible impact of nearby development.