The Sutter Buttes: Attachments to the land

The Sutter Buttes are an isolated group of lava domes jutting out of California's flat Central Valley. They are a publicly valued icon, and have been compared to natural wonders such as Crater Lake and Yosemite, but unlike those icons, access into the Buttes is currently limited to authorized individuals and private landowners (Martin 1991). In 2003 the California Department of Parks and Recreation (State Parks) purchased 1,785 acres in the northern portion of the Buttes (CapRadio 2007). However, because the property is surrounded entirely by private land, the park is currently not available for public use (Rogers 2013). As a result, State Parks has offered many of the surrounding landowners exorbitant prices for their properties, with the intention of augmenting these properties to the park. By doing so, the state hopes to eventually border a county road, thus making the park accessible to the public. However, as of yet, no landowners have sold their properties to the state. This research investigates landowners' sense of place, and, more specifically, reveals that a positive sense of place is a strong factor influencing a number of the landowners' decisions to retain the titles to their properties.