The process of fulfilling this vision of stewardship has only just begun. Turning a 19th-century ranch into a TNC preserve is a little like buying an old mansion and giving it a gut renovation. It looks great from a distance, but there’s a lot of work to be done on the inside. Plans must be drawn up, permits applied for, contractors hired, seeds collected. And even though the property looks very natural and intact, there are areas that need to be restored: damaged wetlands, habitat for endangered plants and animals, and sensitive dune habitat infested by non-native species. Landscape assessments, like the one being conducted by Junak and Riege, are also showing preserve managers which areas harbor invasive species ripe for removal.

“Creating a preserve of this magnitude is complex, and the work can only begin once you’re handed the keys,” says Michael Bell, director of the Dangermond preserve for TNC. Besides the land assessments, there are the couple dozen buildings strewn across the property in various conditions. Turning them into usable facilities is a matter of finding out which lights turn on and where the plumbing still works.

On a broader scale, TNC and Jack and Laura Dangermond share a vision that includes making the preserve a living laboratory that will draw researchers and students from nearby University of California, Santa Barbara and other universities. With the help of the Dangermonds, the owners of the geographic software company Esri, the vision is for this place to become one of the world’s most studied preserves, outfitted with environmental sensors to better understand the impact of climate change on the region’s natural resources.

Even in a state with dozens of TNC preserves and projects, the scale of the Dangermond preserve and its role in the cultural and biological landscape mean that it will be managed in a new way. The first objective is to preserve it, then determine how access can be managed to advance conservation, science and education. The Dangermond preserve will be managed and studied in a way to guide future conservation efforts around the state. “We don’t want it to be just a nature preserve,” says Mike Sweeney, the executive director for TNC in California. “We want it to be much more than that.”