Rincon Institute - Natural Area Protection

Cienega Corridor Conservation Council

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Natural Area Protection

Rincon Valley Farmers Market

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Rincon Institute
13701 E. Old Spanish Tr.
Tucson, AZ 85747
Tel 520-647-7388
Fax 520-290-0969

Rincon Valley
Farmers Market

Natural Area Protection

Private Land Protection

The Rincon Institute is a land trust, meaning we can hold conservation easements for landowners who want to protect their land from development or overuse in perpetuity. Our private land protection efforts as a land trust help protect the natural resources within and around Saguaro National Park by promoting voluntary conservation of open space on private lands near the Park and along important riparian areas and wildlife corridors. We accomplish this by engaging landowners and challenging them to learn about their conservation options. There are diverse opportunitites and conservation tools that landowners can utilize to create specific protection plans that protect the fragile resources of this beautiful area.

Saguaro National Park Expansion

The Rincon Institute has played an instrumental role in expanding both the east and west units of Saguaro National Park. In 1991, the Institute organized a diverse coalition of environmentalists,

Photo by Michelle Berry

landowners, and neighborhood activists to win bipartisan support for expanding the Rincon Mountain District of the park by almost 4,000 acres. The "expansion area" contains healthy multi-aged saguaro stands, cottonwood groves, mesquite bosques, and relatively rare wildlife species such as the Gila monster, desert tortoise, cougar, and coati. In 1994, the Rincon Institute supported a similar coalition that convinced Congress to add another 3,400 acres to the Tucson Mountain District of the park. Congress is now appropriating funds to acquire these valuable lands.

We also coordinated a three-year initiative for open space protection that led to the overwhelming passage of the $36 million Pima County Desert Protection and Historic Preservation bond in May 1997

Visit the Saguaro National Park website to learn more!

What is a Conservation Easement?

Currently, Rincon Institute holds three conservation easements protecting approximately 190 acres along important riparian areas and federally protected land within the Tanque Verde and Rincon Valleys. So what does that mean; what is a conservation easement? A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust (a private nonprofit conservation organization, such as the Rincon Institute) or government agency that limits a property's uses in order to protect its conservation values. Property consists of a group of distinct rights, which include agricultural rights (the right to farm or ranch), development rights (the right to subdivide the land, construct buildings, etc.), mineral rights (the right to mine), hunting rights, water rights, as well as the right to exclude others from the property. Therefore, when you own land, you also "own" many rights associated with it. When you donate or sell a conservation easement to a land trust, you permanently give up some of those rights.