Keep It Colorado Awards $197,000 in Cost Assistance to Protect Iconic Landscapes, Working Lands and Wildlife
Conservation Will Protect Over 8,000 Acres of Private Lands across Colorado
Dec. 12, 2022 – DENVER – The nonprofit coalition Keep It Colorado will award $197,000 in grants to help three Colorado land trusts complete conservation projects in 2023 and 2024. With this assistance, land trusts will aid landowners in covering the high costs of voluntarily conserving their properties in perpetuity. Their conservation activities will protect 8,512 acres of land that would otherwise be at imminent risk of being sold, subdivided or converted to other uses.
The grant review committee selected the award recipients based on a competitive grant application process. Projects were evaluated based on how well they advance the pace and scale of conservation; create connectivity or adjacency across critical landscapes; expand conservation across diverse geographic areas; and leverage the state’s conservation easement tax credit. They were also evaluated based on how they relate to other conserved or public lands, align with one or more goals of Colorado’s Statewide Private Lands Conservation Plan, and meet the landowner’s financial need.
Three land trusts will receive grants to support four conservation easement projects:
Colorado West Land Trust – Flying Triangle Ranch: $50,000
Canal on the Flying Triangle Ranch
This project encompasses 1,754 acres of a larger working ranch in the Plateau Valley region of Mesa County, near Grand Junction. Surrounded by Forest Service land, Bureau of Land Management land and other intact ranches, this ranch property is in an area known for its critical winter range for big-game species. It also contains irrigated ground that is important to the sustainability of ranching operations. Conserving this working ranch will support the long-term economic viability of western Colorado, protect critical wildlife habitat and scenic viewsheds, and help ensure water availability in the Colorado River basin.
Hensley Ranch view of Mesa Verde
Montezuma Land Conservancy – Mesa Verde Landscape (2 easements): $97,000
This project is an urgent opportunity to carry out a landscape-level conservation effort that is decades in the making. Located in Montezuma County and adjacent to Mesa Verde National Park, the San Juan Scenic Byway and San Juan National Forest, this project will protect 2,565 acres of highly developable land. The two conservation easements will permanently conserve an iconic Mesa Verde viewshed seen by over 600,000 visitors annually, support agricultural resiliency, protect significant archaeological sites, and maintain critical habitat for elk, mule deer, black bear, wild turkey and mountain lion, in addition to numerous other mammals, birds and native plants.
Markus Family Ranch - Box Springs Dam
Palmer Land Conservancy – Markus Family Ranch: $50,00
This project supports the Markus family’s ongoing work to steward land on its 3,665-acre farm and ranch in Crowley County. In a commitment to ensure the property’s agricultural productivity and viability today and in the future, the family’s donated conservation easement will protect the ranch’s cow-calf operation and the farm’s forage crops, as well as the senior water rights the operation relies upon for irrigation. Conserving this property enables the family to continue contributing to the economic health, resiliency and vitality of rural communities in southeastern Colorado and the state’s role as an agricultural leader.
Keep It Colorado received funding requests totaling $579,902, far exceeding the amount of funds available. “This signals to us that the demand for assistance in conserving lands is very strong, and filling the funding gap will be an ongoing need. We’re thrilled to be able to support the highest-need projects with the funds we currently have at our disposal,” said Melissa Daruna, Keep It Colorado’s executive director.
Keep It Colorado received a $412,000 investment from Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO), and will disburse this investment in the form of grants to land trusts in two separate grant rounds. The second grant round will take place in spring 2023.
Daruna added, “We are very grateful to Great Outdoors Colorado for continuing to see value in funding this important work. We’re grateful to the landowners who’ve chosen to protect Colorado’s important landscapes that contribute so much to our quality of life here. And we’re grateful to the land trusts who are helping those landowners achieve their goals.”
In total, the completed projects from this grant round will leverage nearly $5.5 million in tax credits through the state’s conservation easement tax credit program. Tax credits, along with Keep It Colorado’s grant program, are important financial incentives that make it possible for landowners to protect wildlife habitat, water, working lands, and a way of life across Colorado.
About the Transaction Cost Assistance Program
In 2021, Keep It Colorado partnered with Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) to establish the Transaction Cost Assistance Program (TCAP). In 2022, Keep It Colorado was able to continue the program under the newly launched Conservation Catalyst Fund. TCAP regrants funds to nonprofit land trusts to help cover the costs associated with conservation easement transactions. It enables landowners who have urgent opportunities to conserve their properties, but who face financial barriers to facilitating the transaction, to conserve more land more quickly – thereby protecting critical habitat, local food systems, iconic viewsheds, wetland and river corridors, and places of historic and cultural significance. With this assistance, Keep It Colorado eases the financial burden on landowners and enables them to move forward with protecting critical landscapes that are at imminent risk of being sold, subdivided or converted to other uses.
About Keep It Colorado
Keep It Colorado serves as a unified voice for conservation organizations focused on private lands conservation, and does so by bringing together land trusts, public agencies and conservation champions around a vision to create a Colorado where people, lands, waters and wildlife thrive. Keep It Colorado advocates for sound public policy; provides connection and collaboration opportunities for conservation partners; offers a forum to address emerging conservation issues and opportunities; pursues sustainable funding and programmatic tools and solutions; and works to advance a culture of conservation in Colorado. Learn more at www.keepitco.org.
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