Keep It Colorado Launches Initiatives to Help Landowners Pursuing Conservation
Landowners will benefit from cost assistance and more choices for valuing conservation easements
Sept. 28, 2022 – GOLDEN – Keep It Colorado has launched two initiatives through its new Emerging Conservation Opportunities (ECO) Program. The Transaction Cost Assistance Program and the Alternative Valuation Tool pilot will benefit landowners interested in using conservation easements to voluntarily conserve land. These initiatives are made possible through a recent $3 million grant from Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO), announced in June.
“We’re excited to hit the ground running with two new initiatives that members of the conservation community have been asking for,” said Melissa Daruna, Keep It Colorado’s executive director. “We thank GOCO for supporting our vision to provide tools, resources and capacity to not only enable more land, water and wildlife conservation, but to develop creative ways of doing so.”
Transaction Cost Assistance Program (TCAP). Keep It Colorado announced this competitive grant opportunity to its coalition members in August. Member land trusts and open space agencies may apply for up to $50,000 in grants to cover costs associated with conservation easement transactions for projects expected to close by the end of 2024. Keep It Colorado has $412,000 to disburse during its Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 grant rounds. This month, Keep It Colorado received 11 grant applications amounting to $579,902 in requests. The nonprofit will announce awards in December.
TCAP eases the burden for landowners who want to conserve their land but face financial barriers to do so. With TCAP assistance, landowners can 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. In 2021, Keep It Colorado’s pilot TCAP supported 14 projects and resulted in the conservation of 5,600 acres of land and leveraged more than $8.3 million in tax credits through the state’s conservation easement tax credit program.
A few success stories from last year’s TCAP funds are available on Keep It Colorado’s website:
Alternative Valuation Tool pilot. Keep It Colorado has hired a conservation innovation fellow through CivicSpark, an AmeriCorps program, to help develop a proof of concept for a new tool to value conservation easements. Katelyn Toigo began her fellowship position in late September. The alternative valuation method will enable conservation in critical areas of the state that feature the most biodiverse and climate-resilient landscapes. It will give landowners a choice about how to determine a proposed conservation easement value for their property while maximizing opportunities to conserve wildlife habitat, water resources, healthy soils and other land conservation values.
Additional initiatives of Keep It Colorado’s ECO program will be in development over the next several months and into 2023. This includes partnered programming with the Land Trust Alliance to offer justice, equity, diversity and inclusion training to Keep It Colorado coalition members as part of the ECO Program’s Land Conservation Community Health and Sustainability Program.
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