jamison_watts_marin_agricultural_land_trust
Jamison Watts, who took over the reins from longtime director Bob Berner in late 2012, is hoping to pull funds from the state’s cap and trade revenue to fuel his organization’s continued protection of farmlands and stewardship support.  David Briggs

In response to fears that West Marin’s agricultural lands would succumb to development, destroying an economy and a tradition of stewardship more than a century in the making, two women spearheaded a solution. In 1980 biologist Phyllis Faber and rancher Ellen Straus co-founded the Marin Agricultural Land Trust. The nonprofit protects ranches, farms and dairies by purchasing conservation easements from landowners that prevent the land from ever being subdivided or developed and at the same…