Economics

Conserving and restoring important natural lands, while sustaining agriculture in the Tulare Basin, enhances the region's economic vitality, protects its unique rural character, and improves the quality of life for those who live and work here. While much of the region's economy centers on agriculture, enhanced tourism and business ventures -- capitalizing on the region's natural resources -- could provide a diversified, stable economic base into the future.

Today, a thriving $10 billion annual agriculture industry creates the foundation for much of the economic activity in the Tulare Basin. With more than 320 crops across four counties (Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Kern), agriculture provides jobs on the farm or ranch and in the processing, packing, manufacturing, and services industries related to agriculture.

Eco-, agri-, and heritage tourism opportunities offer visitors the chance to bird watch, recreate, learn, and enjoy wildlife refuges, state parks, and other public and privately-managed lands (Click on recreation & education at left for places to visit.). The fall and winter months draw local and statewide visitors for waterfowl hunting and to watch thousands of sandhill cranes and other birds that winter in the Tulare Basin's wetland habitats.

Larger cities and towns on the east and north sides of the Tulare Basin thrive with augmented economic activities such as health care, education, utilities, and construction, in addition to agriculture and tourism. For the most part though, the small, rural communities in the Tulare Basin are characterized as disadvantaged. Regionally, the Tulare Basin suffers from an average 12.5% unemployment rate and an average 21.8% poverty rate. More than 33% of residents do not have a high school diploma or GED.

By conserving and restoring the Tulare Basin's land and water, Tulare Basin Wildlife Partners seek to ensure a strong economy that enhances tourism opportunities and creates new prospects for independent businesses while building on the solid economic foundation created by agriculture. Capitalizing on its rich natural and agricultural heritage, new economic activities in the Tulare Basin centered on wildlife and natural areas can support and enhance poor rural communities by bringing increased visitation and with it, the services visitors need, thus creating new jobs and increasing local spending.

Developing the region's small towns and hamlets sustainably, while protecting their rural character and unique natural and agricultural resources, will create thriving communities with a high quality of life for those who live and work in the Tulare Basin.

Case Study: Alpaugh, California
Partnering economic development & environmental conservation

The Tulare Basin offers many mutually beneficial opportunities for partnering economic development and environmental conservation. Below, the Tulare Basin Wildlife Partners offers a scenario to improve the quality of life in a rural Tulare Basin town:

Located in the heart of the Tulare Basin, Alpaugh, California, epitomizes the region's small, rural communities struggling to prosper. This farming community of 700 residents in the corner of Kings and Tulare counties sits on land that was once an island in the now dry Tulare Lake. Settled by Dust Bowl migrants in the 1930s, it is now largely a low-income farm worker community with high poverty and unemployment rates. Alpaugh, plagued with a history of water quality problems, does not have access to clean, safe drinking water due to high arsenic levels in the groundwater. A recent four million dollar water-improvement project does not meet new Environmental Protection Agency standards and has yet to produce quality, cost-efficient water for residents. Ironically, this disadvantaged community is rich in natural resources and surrounded by farmland, hunting clubs, wildlife refuges, and other public lands.

Investing in small towns like Alpaugh to provide safe, clean drinking water not only improves the quality of life for residents, but also opens the door for a wide-range of potential services to support nature-related tourism and recreation activities. Clean water increases the potential for city development, creating the opportunity to take a strategic approach to forming a community that minimizes its footprint on nature and maximizes available wildlife habitat. Sustainable development of new service businesses, coupled with a potable water supply, would enable facilities such as a hotel to house visitors on a bird watching or hunting trip. In addition, a water treatment plant would create jobs, encourage innovation, and provide the opportunity to sell water to wetlands in dry years, which benefits migratory waterfowl and other water-dependent plants and animals.