Colorado Parks and Wildlife Invests $10,000 in Private Lands Conservation Planning
Keep It Colorado’s statewide planning effort will launch this spring
April 22, 2021 – DENVER – The nonprofit conservation coalition Keep It Colorado has received $10,000 in funding to help develop the Statewide Private Lands Conservation Plan. The investment comes from Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Partners in the Outdoors Program, and is a complement to funds Keep It Colorado received from Great Outdoors Colorado and the Colorado Water Conservation Board in March.
The Statewide Private Lands Conservation Plan is a collaborative effort that Keep It Colorado is developing with the input of land trusts and partners to create a unified vision for the future of private lands conservation in Colorado. It will provide a set of concrete objectives and strategies, with aims to identify urgent areas for protection and create a roadmap for on-the-ground conservation the private lands conservation community wants to achieve in the next 10 years.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s investment will be applied toward developing the plan; organizing training and implementation of The Nature Conservancy’s Resilient and Connected Networks tool; engaging in discussions with community members across Colorado; conducting outreach around the plan’s release; and facilitating activities.
Because 60 percent of lands in Colorado are privately owned, they account for a significant portion of the state that needs protection and are a primary focus of Keep It Colorado’s coalition work. Prioritizing the conservation interests and needs of private landowners, including the protection of working farm and ranch lands, critical wildlife habitat and iconic viewsheds, Keep It Colorado’s plan will help ensure that those lands feature prominently in a broader statewide conservation framework. This includes, for example, Colorado Water Conservation Board’s updated Colorado Water Plan, and several Colorado Parks and Wildlife initiatives, including the Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan; efforts to promote Colorado's Outdoor Principles; and programs to advance and balance outdoor recreation and conservation in Colorado.
Keep It Colorado conceived of the plan in 2019 when it recognized a gap in statewide planning around the protection of private lands. “There is a long history of strong private lands conservation across the state. But those efforts are often fragmented and not based on a set of common strategies that prioritize this work at a statewide level,” said Melissa Daruna, executive director of Keep It Colorado.
“With these funds, Colorado Parks and Wildlife shows its strong commitment to increasing the scale and pace of conservation, and protecting a substantial percentage of Colorado’s natural resources in a coordinated and thoughtful way,” she added.
Keep It Colorado seeks additional funds for implementation of projects identified in the statewide plan. Learn more at www.keepitco.org/private-lands-plan.
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.
###
