| Fast Facts |
location
150 miles southwest of Colorado Springs
ecoregion
Southern Rocky Mountains
project size
9,000 square miles
preserves
Medano-Zapata Ranch, Mishak Lakes
public lands
Great Sand Dunes National Monument, Monte Vista and Alamosa national wildlife refuges, San Luis Lakes State Park, Russell Lakes State Wildlife Area, Rio Grande National Forest, Blanca Wetlands
partners
National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, ranchers, farmers, local land and water trusts, Colorado State Land Board, U.S. Forest Service, Colorado Division of Wildlife, Bureau of Land Management, water conservation districts
conservancy initiatives
Freshwater, Invasive Species, Fire
natural events
Sandhill cranes gather, March and April | |
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Water is the highest stake in the San Luis Valley -- for farmers, wetlands and wildlife, and for the towering dunes whose sands are continuously replenished by the flow of water itself. |
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Great Sand Dunes National Monument and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
© Wendy Shattil/Bob Rozinski |
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To stand in the greasewood flats of the San Luis Valley and look eastward to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains is a fantastic, otherwordly sight: Pale, sinuous sand dunes twist and rise hundreds of feet in the foreground, a startling contrast to the snow-capped mountains looming behind. These are the tallest dunes in North America, shaped and replenished by the dynamic interaction of sand, wind and water -- water from aquifers and that which pours off the mountain slopes in crystal streams.
The San Luis Valley has been called one of the continent's most unusual landscapes. Running 150 miles long and 50 miles wide, flanked by the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan Mountains, it encompasses cottonwood-lined creeks, shrubby expanses of rabbitbrush and sagebrush, shallow lakes, piņon and juniper hillsides, forests of aspen, pine and spruce, and the strange sand dunes themselves. |
Great Sand Dunes tiger beetle.
© Wendy Shattil/Bob Rozinski |
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Underneath the valley floor lies a huge aquifer that feeds ponds, artesian wells, springs and lakes; from the valley flow the headwaters of the Rio Grande. The wetlands draw large concentrations of wildlife, such as the sandhill cranes that come to dance here each spring. The waters also have enabled farmers, many of whose ancestors moved into the valley |
| from the Spanish Southwest generations ago, to make a living. The presence of so much water in an the arid West makes the San Luis the envy of many. | |
In 2001, to thwart a plan that would have exported water from the valley to growing Front Range communities to the east, The Nature Conservancy signed a purchase agreement for the 97,000-acre Baca Ranch, a historic ranch that dates from an 1824 Mexican land grant. The water rights -- and the water itself -- remain with the land, ensuring that the hydrologic processes that nurture the sand dunes and myriad life forms will continue. The local community broadly supported the Baca purchase and the eventual creation of the Great Sand Dunes National Park -- a rare occurrence in the rural West where new public lands are not always welcome.
Learn more about The Nature Conservancy's work in Colorado. |
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| Conservation Profile |
targets
Sand dunes, greasewood flats, ephemeral wetlands, wet meadows, slender spiderflower, Great Sand Dunes tiger beetle, sandhill cranes and other migratory shorebirds
stresses
exportation and diversion of water, invasive species, inappropriate recreation, oil and gas exploration and development, incompatible residential development, landscape fragmentation
strategies
acquire land, secure conservation easements, protect water quantity, influence land-use planning, combat invasive species, prevent or minimize impact of oil and gas exploration and development
results
more than 200,000 acres in conservation management | | | | |
