Let’s give a slow clap to Robin and Nancy Wainwright.
The couple could have sold their 400-acre plot of pristine meadows to one of them diabolical real-estate developer types for mucho dinero. Instead, they took a loss of a few hundred thousand dollars and sold it to Yosemite National Park instead.
While not that big in terms of pure land mass (the existing park was 748,000 acres), Ackerson Meadows, as it’s called, is still a big deal — the largest addition to the Park since 1949. It was purchased by the Trust for Public Land for $2.3M and donated directly to the National Parks Service, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Cattle have been grazing these meadows for the past 100 years, and a bit of logging was done there, too. But now only a small chunk will be allotted for grazing, which has angered local ranchers.
We’re only talking 400 acres, of course, but like anything to do with land use, the move is provoking controversy. Meanwhile, anyone up for a little camping?
Photo by Robb Hirsch
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