The California Rangeland Trust brought its annual Reunir celebration back to Santa Barbara County for the first time in more than a decade, marked by the premiere of its award-winning documentary, You Just Can’t See Them From the Road.

Nearly 300 people gathered at the historic Lobero Theatre in downtown Santa Barbara for the March 6 screening.

The film — directed and produced by sisters Keely Brazil Covello and Michaela Brazil Gillies — highlights the stories and challenges of California ranchers who remain largely invisible to the modernizing society they sustain.

“When family ranching operations go out of business, the land is often sold for development,” said Michael Delbar, CEO of the Sacramento-based Rangeland Trust.

“We are losing essential working lands at an alarming rate. The United States loses 2,000 acres of farm and ranch land every day, and California is on track to lose nearly 800,000 acres of agricultural land by 2040.”

The hour-long documentary features several notable ranching operations:

• The family-owned Hearst Ranch, which has raised cattle for more than 150 years on 83,000 acres of native grasslands in the shadow of Hearst Castle in San Simeon and Cholame
• The Elgorriagas, a multigenerational Basque-American family in Madera County facing the loss of their land and way of life
• The six-generation Koopmann Ranch, one of the few remaining ranches in the Bay Area, surrounded by encroaching urban sprawl in Sunol in the East Bay
• The 270,000-acre Tejon Ranch, based in Lebec between Los Angeles and Bakersfield, one of the largest private landowners in California
• Kern County rancher Ernest Bufford, a retired California Highway Patrol officer and one of the state’s largest black landowners

The documentary has earned numerous film festival awards around the country, including Best Documentary, Best Director and People’s Choice.

Before the screening, Santa Ynez Valley journalist Jessica Schley read from her poignant essay “Beneath All Is the Land,” featured in the recently published book Roots and Resilience — California Ranchers in Their Own Words.

The roots and resilience of modern ranchers — who make up less than 2% of Americans working in production agriculture — are on full display in You Just Can’t See Them From the Road.

“We made this film to share the untold stories of ranching — acknowledging the challenges that many ranching families face just to stay in business and celebrating the critical role that ranchers play in stewarding the land,” said Alyssa Rolen, the trust’s communications director who conceived the documentary project.

During a post-screening Q&A led by emcee Lynn Kirst, Rolen emphasized that conservation is a win-win.

“What we stand to lose is more than just land,” she said. “It’s vibrant wildlife habitat, safety against out-of-control wildfires, essential grasslands that sequester carbon, fresh water, clean air, and so much more.”

Delbar highlighted the trust’s impact.

“To date, the Rangeland Trust has helped 96 ranching families protect more than 400,000 acres of rangeland throughout California,” he said.

“But with more than 90 ranching families still awaiting funding for conservation, we know that we still have more work to do.”

In Santa Barbara County specifically, the trust has partnered with five ranching families to voluntarily conserve more than 17,000 acres. Six other local families are seeking assistance to conserve another 50,000 acres.

The Rangeland Trust will continue screening the documentary throughout California to raise awareness and funding for its mission of rangeland preservation. Click here to make an online donation.

The Santa Barbara showing was sponsored by Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP, Happy Canyon Ranch, Noozhawk, Lynn Kirst and Keith Whiting Moore.

The Rangeland Trust will return to Santa Barbara County on Oct. 4 for its annual gala, A Western Affair, hosted by Julia and Lee Carr at their 800-acre Rancho Santa Barbara in the Santa Ynez Valley.