Driving through the backyard of Yolo County, Bob Schneider seems to sense every plant, every animal and every nuance of the land here.

He can tell you how the tectonic plates of the Earth collided long ago and erupted upward into the Coast Ranges and its foothills creased with velvety folds.

"Change is coming to this area; there's going to be a lot more people here," said Schneider as he guided his Subaru Outback through the Capay Valley's prolific orchards and verdant farms.

He wants someone passing this same way 100, even 500 years from now to see the same stunning vista where tule elk roam and the finicky yellow-legged frog manages to thrive.

Without a monumental effort to preserve the diverse environment in a 100-mile swath of California's interior, buildings and roads could obliterate it acre by acre, he said.

Schneider is board president of Tuleyome, a Woodland-based environmental nonprofit organization working to establish a National Conservation Area – the third in California – encompassing nearly half a million acres in six counties.

The country's 13 existing National Conservation Areas create a single, cohesive plan to preserve and manage vast landscapes typically managed by a patchwork of public agencies, including counties.

The designation, which must be approved by Congress, provides a more logical way to properly care for an ecosystem, which doesn't acknowledge political boundaries, Schneider said. Even fire management would improve, he said.

What would be called the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Conservation Area stretches from the Lake Berryessa region through Solano, Napa, Yolo, Lake, Colusa and Glenn counties to Snow Mountain. No private land is included unless landowners opt in.

Representatives of Tuleyome, which means "deep home place" in Miwok, are appearing before county supervisors and appealing to environmentalists and recreation enthusiasts, including hunters, to form a consensus that would eventually become federal legislation later this year.

Some farmers and ranchers, particularly in Glenn and Colusa counties, oppose the conservation area because it could exacerbate existing problems, said Ashley Indrieri, executive director of the Family Water Alliance in Colusa County.

Public lands aren't adequately managed to curtail trespassing and other infringements that plague private property owners, she said. If the conservation area expands, so will the problem, Indrieri said.

Habitat restoration could also threaten adjacent agricultural land owners, she said.

"Restoring the land means increasing pest species," she said. "You bring these critters back to the land."

Schneider once led an effort to eradicate tamarisk, a non-native, water-sucking plant that sprouts along Cache Creek, depriving native plants. Volunteers cleaned a 20-mile stretch of Bureau of Land Management land, but to continue down the creek would have meant dealing with other agencies first. It hasn't happened.

The patchwork of agencies overseeing the land – all with different missions – also makes it confusing to figure out where recreation areas begin and end, Schneider said. He believes the Obama administration will be supportive of the new designation.

A massive preservation bill that combined dozens of other proposed bills – some that had languished for years in Congress – recently passed the U.S. Senate. The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 would create another 2 million acres of wilderness, including four new conservation areas in mostly Western states.

Land preservation and protection of natural resources are growing bipartisan concerns as population centers push farther out, said Kevin Mack, campaign director of the National Landscape Conservation System for The Wilderness Society.

In the past, the rally to save land usually centered on "special places," such as the Grand Canyon, Yosemite Valley or the Old Faithful geyser, Mack said. But now, preservation is tied less to visual appeal or attraction, he said.

"There's more attention to providing ecological boundaries," Mack said.

In the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Conservation Area, serpentine soils that once covered the ocean floor are now hills rippling through the region, supporting unique plant life, Schneider said.

"This part of California is really special with respect to the plants and animals who live here," Schneider said.

Call The Bee's M.S. Enkoji, (916) 321-1106.