One of the oldest ranches in West Marin will soon be added to the portfolio of farmland protected from development by the Marin Agricultural Land Trust. On Tuesday, the trust secured $418,350 of public funds to purchase the development rights to the Parks Ranch, a historic 177-acre property just north of Tomales, ensuring the land will remain dedicated to agriculture and protected from any pressures of subdivision and sprawl. The county Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the Measure A grant, marking the fifth MALT conservation easement funded this year by the quarter-cent sales tax supporting parks, open space and farmland that voters renewed in 2022. County dollars will be matched by contributions from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, covering the $836,700 total cost of the easement. The late Lois Parks, who lived on the property until shortly before her death in 2015, was committed to preserving open space and ensuring that future generations could maintain a connection to the land. Her son, Bob Parks, who passed away last year, shared her vision, and now, Mike Parks, Lois’s grandson and a fifth-generation rancher, carries that legacy forward. “My grandma wanted to ensure the family moved with the farm into the future,” Mr. Parks told the Light. “She lived a simple life of very little means. The fact that we get an opportunity to pass the property on to future generations is only because of selfless decisions that were made by those that came before us.”  Under the agreement with MALT, the Parks family, who have farmed the land for over 150 years, will retain ownership and management of the ranch, while committing to both agricultural use and conservation in perpetuity.  The ranch, which includes a main house built in 1860 that ranks among Marin’s oldest continuously inhabited homes, straddles the Stemple Creek and Walker Creek watersheds and is home to the headwaters of Tomales Creek, a key tributary feeding into the bay. Its preservation links more than 11,000 acres of contiguous farmland already conserved by MALT, creating a patchwork of protected landscapes to the north, south, east and west. “Parks Ranch is exceptional not just as prime ranchland, but as a biodiversity hotspot,” said Lily Verdone, MALT’s director. “By protecting this property, we’re safeguarding critical natural habitats alongside its agricultural legacy.” Over the years, the ranch has supported a variety of agricultural endeavors, including poultry, sheep and cattle grazing. Today, the land is leased to Stemple Creek Ranch, which maintains a cow-calf beef operation with about 30 cattle. In his earliest memories, Mr. Parks recalls riding in an old truck with his father, feeding sheep and chickens and mending fences. “This was a shared dream,” he said. He now has young daughters of his own who are already learning the intricacies of ranch life—spotting subtle changes in grazing patterns or the weather that might escape an untrained eye. “We’re growing our next generation of stewards of this land,” he said.