Environmentalists, Conservationists Celebrate Land Purchase in Proctor Valley

Conservationists held a celebration in Proctor Valley last week to mark a major win for rare and threatened plant and animal species in a swath of land that had been slated for a large development project.

Instead, the land was purchased by a collective of conservation groups and state and federal agencies and will now connect two protected wildlife areas — the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Rancho Jamul Ecological Reserve and U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s San Diego National Wildlife Refuge, giving wild animals much more room to roam.

The nearly 1,300-acre package in Otay Ranch had been purchased by a developer in 2014 and was the planned site for Adara, a housing project which would have consisted of hundreds of homes, businesses, and an elementary school. The county approved the project — despite the area’s known wildfire risk — in 2019.

A coalition that included local, state, federal, and tribal leaders sued to stop the development. The Nature Conservancy, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California Wildlife Conservation Board, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service then worked together to acquire the approximately 1,291 acres of land for $60 million.

A July 2023 settlement between the Sierra Club and the Biden administration involving lawsuits over the construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall under the Trump administration contributed $25 million toward the purchase via the Department of Homeland Security.

The sale was completed in January.

“The purpose of this entire complex was to protect multiple species — animals, plants — into the future for future generations, as the climate changes, as the environment changes,” said Cara Lacey, TNC’s climate program associate director.

The package of land that was up for potential development would have threatened the rare, remarkably biodiverse coastal sage scrub habitat that hosts the Quino checkerspot butterfly, the San Diego fairy shrimp, the coastal California gnatcatcher, and the golden eagle, among other species.

“We definitely want to express that we recognize that we’re in a housing crisis and need housing,” Lacey said. “But in a way that makes sense to people.”

She pointed out that with the known wildfire risk to the region exacerbated by development, wildfires would threaten human lives, as well.

“A housing development of approximately 1,100 acres was going to be here, and it wouldn’t have been a great climate resilience place for them, either… it’s very hard to evacuate people from.”

Housing and household materials can release particulate matter and often toxic emissions into the air as they burn, creating still more risk to the region.

The Reserve-Refuge conservation area, which now includes the Proctor Valley property, is highly bioverse and contains numerous endangered and threatened species in an ecologically sensitive region that depends on substantial private and public landholdings in order to continue to exist.