The biggest land conservation deal in California’s history was announced yesterday, totaling nearly 240,000 acres in Southern California.

A couple of features, while not entirely new, are worth pointing out:

  1. The deal involved allowing the owners to develop about 10 percent of the area pretty intensely and maintain some natural resource extraction while preserving as wilderness the overwhelming majority — a good example of making a trade-off that doesn’t pit economic and environmental interests against each other and allows for much greater public access at the same time.
  2. New wildlife corridors are being constructed to allow animals and plants the ability to migrate; I have written about this before, since this type of flexibility will be crucial to ensure that species can adapt to climate change.

All in all, a good deal for California and the country. Something to celebrate.