All About TVC

To better serve the Tri-Valley’s needs, we have evolved our strategies to help prioritize the most impactful projects, leaving the Tri-Valley a better place for you, wildlife, and future generations.

Our mission and vision guide TVC’s work to protect critical lands, including safeguarding urban growth boundaries, conducting studies to support agricultural sustainability, and engaging the next generation with the outdoors.

Tri-Valley Conservancy’s Strategic Plan was designed to take advantage of opportunities and respond to the challenges facing the Tri-Valley region. The Strategic Plan provides goals and objectives that guide our actions toward impactful results.

The Strategic Plan is reviewed each year and updated as needed.

  • Promote economically sustainable vineyards and orchards, and increase permanently protected, biologically diverse open spaces.

  • A Tri-Valley region where agricultural, range and park lands are preserved and enhanced for the benefit of current and future generations.

  • Sometimes the best opportunity for protecting land is through acquisition, or purchasing a property, to preserve the land’s resources.

    Once land is preserved, the next step of our work is taking care of the land through stewardship. Each easement has different needs to best protect its natural resources, but all easements have annual property visits and consultation with property owners about the terms of their easement.

  • If you have any suggestions, please contact us at info@trivalleyconservancy.org.

Working Towards Our Mission

Tri-Valley Conservancy’s mission is to “promote economically sustainable vineyards and orchards, and increase permanently protected, biologically diverse open spaces.”

We primarily accomplish our Mission with conservation easements to protect a land’s valuable natural resources in perpetuity. Conservation easements can offer landowners with a flexible, voluntary alternative to subdividing or developing their property.

We work with willing landowners to acquire property development rights through the legal arrangement of a conservation easement. In doing so, we ensure that a property will be protected from future development.

History

The Livermore Valley has long been a premier wine region!

In the 19th century, vintners recognized the region’s climate and soils as highly suitable for wine-grape cultivation.

By the turn of the century, the Valley was home to more than 5,000 acres of vineyards and over 50 wineries. Pioneering wine families had succeeded fabulously in cultivating high-quality wine operations.

With award-winning wines and a fertile agricultural base, the Livermore Valley’s success was akin to that of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys to the north.

However, the next era in the Valley’s winemaking history ushered in an unfortunate sequence of grape surpluses, root louse, and Prohibition.

By 1933, only 12 wineries remained, and by the late 1960’s the Valley’s viticulture production had dwindled to only 1,500 vine-planted acres and six wineries.

The following decade saw a California wine renaissance that bypassed Livermore. With the rapid growth in Bay Area population, economy, and increasingly strong development pressures, both the Valley’s remaining agricultural lands and its potential to revitalize agriculture were threatened….

In response, the South Livermore Valley Steering Committee was formed in 1987 and by 1993 had created a comprehensive South Livermore Valley Area Plan (SLVAP) to provide strong economic incentives and equitable development regulations to promote investment in viticulture and ensure that development limits be placed on agricultural lands.

Following the County’s adoption of the SLVAP, the South Livermore Valley Agricultural Land Trust was established in 1994 as a 501(c) (3) non-profit, public benefit corporation to preserve and protect important agricultural and open space lands.

The Land Trust’s original purpose was to permanently protect and steward a minimum of 5,000 acres of land within the SLVAP.

The land trust began with a five-member Board appointed by local governments and vineyard advocacy groups.

The original five members elected two other members as Directors at Large. In 2002, the Board added two additional at-large directors for a total of nine directors.

In early 2003, a strategic planning process was initiated and the land trust board recognized the need to have a greater conservation presence in the region.

The South Livermore Valley Agricultural Land Trust became the Tri-Valley Conservancy with an expanded geographic area covering the cities of Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon, and the Sunol area!