Save Mount Diablo acquired the Ginochio Schwendel Ranch — a 98-acre property along the Marsh Creek wildlife corridor, between Clayton and Brentwood — for $1.45 million, the group announced Thursday.
That land will now be permanently preserved and managed as part of a new state program focused on the San Andreas fault’s inner coast, including the 200-mile Diablo Range.
Save Mount Diablo said the group closed escrow on this “landmark conservation victory” a week after securing a $728,000 grant from the California Wildlife Conservation Board, which divvies up money for efforts to safeguard state’s biological diversity and wild spaces.
That funding, which was the regional conservation nonprofit’s first award from the state board, covered about half of the acquisition project’s total cost, the group said.
The Diablo Range, which stretches across 3.5 million acres, is a wildlife habitat corridor that’s home to California condors, mountain lions, tule elk and other creatures, according to Ted Clement, Save Mount Diablo’s executive director.
But “only about 25 percent is currently protected,” Clement said in a statement announcing the deal last week. “We are immensely grateful to the Ginochio family and our supporters for helping make this important land acquisition possible … Together with (state conservation officials), we look forward to protecting other strategic lands within the mountain range that Mount Diablo is a part of and sustained by, the Diablo Range.”
Save Mount Diablo announced in December that they put down a $30,000 option payment to hold the property for 12 months — allowing time to continue fundraising efforts for their first direct purchase from Contra Costa County’s Ginochio cattle ranching family, who own nearly 7,000 acres on and around Mount Diablo.
Schwendel Ranch is located near five other properties that the nonprofit has purchased along Marsh Creek, which is Contra Costa County’s second longest and most undisturbed creek. All told, Save Mount Diablo said they’ve helped protect properties on 15 the creek’s 33 miles.
Additionally, the East Bay Regional Parks District owns Hansen Hills, a 76-acre site roughly a mile east of the ranch, which Save Mount Diablo saved and later transferred to the parks district in 2016.
The group said the entire Diablo range will be managed as part of the San Andreas Corridor Program, which the Wildlife Conservation Board established using $79 million generated by Proposition 4 — a Nov. 2024 ballot measure that Save Mount Diablo backed to help fund environmental projects.
“Marsh Creek is a vital wildlife corridor in an arid region,” Save Mount Diablo nonprofit said in a March 6 statement, explaining how the region’s rare volcanic domes break down into rich mineral socials and retain water. “Piece by piece, for decades, we have been working to protect more and more of this riparian habitat, which stretches through eastern Contra Costa County, connecting Mount Diablo to the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta.”
The nonprofit also noted that Bay Area News Group columnist Joan Morris had encouraged readers to make gifts towards the protection of the Ginochio Schwendel Ranch.
“Many of her readers donated to help preserve this property for generations to come,” the group said.
