I will further state that there are two mentalities at work here: One conservative and old school and the other Liberal and Green.
The conservative/old school view is that pioneers, ranchers, farmers, factory workers, surburbanites, are the backbone of America and we should always cherish their hard work and pioneering spirit. In other words, these are the people that MADE our country great. We owe them.
But the other mentality is one of progressivism where anything human is bad, and any thing Anglo-Saxon, White, American is especially bad. That needs to be nipped n the bud! A turtle, a fly, a baitfish, whatever; all are more important than some old white racist land stealer Gaia destroyer.
If your family has been farming or ranching in the same area over 100 years, on the same land, I'd say there is a pretty good chance that y'all have figured out how to be good stewards of that land, that you know it better than any PhD from elsewhere, and that you have taken care of it because you realize it is the sustainable means of production if you treat it right.
There is land in our family since the 1600s and it is still agricultural. Unfortunately, tendrils of government control have dictated what can and cannot be done with parts of that, and that part of the land is suffering as a result.