William Niman, the founder of Niman Ranch, and his wife Nicolette Hahn Niman have sued the National Park Service over its recent decision to prohibit agricultural operations on 28,000 acres within Point Reyes National Seashore.
The government’s action will cause irreparable harm to the park’s “agricultural heritage, to the environment, to the community, to the regional food supply and to the health of the nation,” the lawsuit alleges.
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The Nimans filed the lawsuit on Feb. 25 with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
“This is really a very wrong turn that the park is taking by essentially walking away from agriculture,” Nicolette Hahn Niman said Thursday.
Melanie Gunn, a spokesperson for the National Park Service, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
The U.S. Department of the Interior, which is also named as a defendant in the suit, declined to comment.
The Nature Conservancy, which is not named in the suit, announced last month that the owners of six dairies and six ranches operating in the park had agreed to halt their operations in exchange for undisclosed compensation from the nonprofit.
The National Park Service announced simultaneously that the land being used by the dairies and ranches would be rezoned and would no longer be available for commercial grazing.
“We can’t speak for the federal government regarding the new lawsuit,” said Heather Gately, a Nature Conservancy spokesperson.
The Niman operation is one of only two in the Point Reyes National Seashore that declined the Nature Conservancy’s buyout offer.
Bill Niman founded Niman Ranch, a sustainable meat company, in 1969, but left in 2007. Perdue Farms purchased the company in 2015. Nicolette Hahn Niman is the author of two books about sustainable meat production.
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Aided by their two sons, the Nimans currently raise grassfed cattle and heritage breed chickens on their Point Reyes ranch and sell their meat throughout the Bay Area.
The Nimans’ suit asserts that the National Park Service failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act when it revised its general management plan for the seashore to exclude agriculture without doing additional environmental analysis.
The suit states that the National Environmental Policy Act requires an environmental impact statement to be prepared for major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. It states that the general plan revision “significantly changes the land uses humans have made in Point Reyes for nearly 200 years.”
On its website, the National Park Service states that it is entitled to adopt a revised version of its general management plan without additional environmental analysis because the new plan consists of elements contained in previously considered alternatives.
The lawsuit is the second filed in connection with the Point Reyes National Seashore land deal. Earlier this month, Andrew Giacomini, a Marin lawyer, filed a complaint alleging that the National Park Service conspired with the Nature Conservancy to pay off ranchers to relinquish their rights to 20-year leases and instead lease the properties to the conservancy.
Giacomini represents people who live on the ranches and dairies and face eviction after they close. Most are Latino residents, and some are agricultural workers who will also lose their jobs.
The National Park Service approved a new general management plan amendment and environmental impact statement for the Point Reyes National Seashore in 2021 following extensive public hearings. That plan allowed the federal agency to issue 20-year agricultural leases to 24 ranch families for continued operations.
In 2022, however, three environmental organizations — the Resource Renewal Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity and Western Watersheds — sued the National Park Service in an effort to end all agricultural activities in the park.
When it announced its revised general management plan in January, the National Park Service said it was “entering into a cooperative agreement and lease option with The Nature Conservancy to assist with conservation efforts on lands vacated by ranchers.”
The agency said the conservation efforts would include “targeted grazing” to “maintain habitat for native plant and animal communities, including rare and endangered species.”
In their lawsuit, the Nimans assert that animal rights activists and conventional agriculture interests and their allies — fossil fuel and chemical companies, big food companies and pharmaceutical companies — want people to believe that regenerative agriculture is unfeasible and harmful to the environment. The Nimans say a large body of scientific evidence shows that animal grazing enhances biodiversity.
The National Park Service has said it will negotiate new long-term leases with the Nimans and the D. Rogers Ranch, the other ranch to remain in the park.
In their suit, however, the Nimans state that the National Park Service intends to impose restrictions “that will make continued ranching economically difficult if not entirely nonviable.” These include restrictions on the number of animals allowed, composting and cover cropping.
The suit also challenges the legality of the National Park Service decision to remove fencing that restricts tule elk from some areas of the park being used for agriculture. The agency announced in January that it “will not limit the movement of or lethally control the native tule elk population in Point Reyes,” which is contrary to the plan laid out in the general management plan approved in 2021.
The Nimans’ suit asks the court to order the National Park Service to “analyze the alternative of leasing the lands in Point Reyes used by the departing ranchers to other farmers and ranchers, on conditions that allow for economically and environmentally sustainable farming and ranching operations.”
“Even if these specific families are no longer practicing agriculture in the park,” Nicolette Hahn Niman said, “we think that agriculture belongs here.”
Reacting to the lawsuit, Chance Cutrano, director of programs at the Resource Renewal Institute, said: “While some ranching advocates continue to advance misleading narratives and dismiss the public interest, the settlement for Point Reyes National Seashore offers a path forward that honors the park’s enduring human history and the overwhelming public mandate expressed during the extensive public comment periods, where more than 90% of commenters called for natural resource protection to take priority over private enterprise on our public lands.”
Albert Straus, founder and executive chairman of the Straus Family Creamery, said, “The lawsuit is very reflective of our position and our concern about how this settlement has been pushed through without any public process, behind closed doors and without public input.”
