Niman Ranch Challenges Point Reyes Seashore Settlement in Lawsuit Over Ranching

Point Reyes ranchers are suing the National Parks Service after it announced it would rezone the coastal land where multigenerational family farms have operated for decades.

Nicolette Hahn Niman and her husband William are suing the park service, alleging that barring agricultural operations on most of the 28,000-acre seashore will cause irreparable damage and fails to account for Congress’s goal to preserve the “ranching and agricultural heritage” of the seashore.

“Defendants’ refusal to consider allowing farming and ranching to continue, even though Congress has specifically authorized Defendants to do so, violates the law and will cause significant and irreparable harm to this agricultural heritage, to the environment, to the community, to the regional food supply, and to the health of the nation,” their suit, filed Feb. 25, reads.

A historic deal between a dozen Point Reyes cattle ranches and dairies, The Nature Conservatory and the National Parks Service in January will end most ranching on the seashore by 2026. Under the agreement, ranchers will relinquish their leases in exchange for compensation from The Nature Conservatory, according to a press release.

The settlement stemmed from a 2022 lawsuit by three environmental groups, which argued that the park service’s decision to continue leasing seashore land to commercial beef and dairy ranches caused ecological damage and threatened the region’s tule elk population.

While many have praised the decision as an ecological win, the Nimans — one of only two Point Reyes Seashore ranches that refused the settlement — disagree.

“We feel like we’re fighting for the continuation of this agricultural community here,” she told KQED. “Not just the people, but the presence of people that are working on the land and producing very high-quality food, focused on a smaller scale that’s grass-based and is really not based on the industrial methods that are used in most of agriculture in the United States today.”

Niman said the Point Reyes area has long followed a unique model where ranchers are deeply connected to the land, using regenerative farming to work in harmony with the environment. Expanding these methods, she said, is both economically and ecologically sustainable — especially as the U.S. works to reshape its food system.

The lawsuit claims the park service is violating the law by refusing to lease ceded land to other ranchers.

“Congress, when it authorized the seashore and created the seashore, granted the park service and the Secretary of the Interior the authority — should the initial ranchers decide to leave, as most have now done — to lease that land to a new generation of ranchers,” said Peter Prows, the attorney representing the Nimans. “That alternative of leasing it to others is something that the park service hasn’t considered in violation of the law, and it’s really unfortunate.”

The suit alleges that the National Park Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the 1976 Tule Elk Law and the Coastal Zone Management Act, among other regulations.

The lawsuit argues that the park service failed to prepare an “adequate” environmental impact statement when revising its management plan this year, as required by the NEPA before any federal action “significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.”

Niman said that new restrictions had been placed on their ranch over the years, making it financially unfeasible to continue — and marking a significant shift in the use of their 800-acre property, part of which they own and part they lease from the park service. Over time, the lease has imposed more stringent restrictions on operations, including a reduction in the number of cattle the ranch can host.

The park service said on its website that it could issue a revised management plan without doing a new environmental impact report because it consists of elements considered already in alternative plans and is within the spectrum of those alternatives.

The lawsuit also claims that a sustainable management plan for the Tule Elk population has not been developed despite the elk’s health being at the center of the legal battle.

The suit is the second filed against the National Park Service since January’s settlement. Last week, a suit was filed on behalf of workers on the ranches who are at risk of eviction when they shutter. It alleges that the park service conspired with the Nature Conservancy to get ranchers to lease their properties to the conservatory.

Niman hopes her lawsuit will prompt the park service to lean into regenerative farming at the North Bay seashore.

“There’s this opportunity here, there has been for a long time, to use this as an example of what agriculture could be, what food production should be and could be in the future,” she said. “We feel like we’re kind of fighting for the soul of this area.”