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The Nature Conservancy in Colorado Home Contact Places We Protect Field Trips and Events Press Releases Volunteer Ways of Giving |
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The Nature Conservancy Celebrates State's Most Successful Conservation InitiativeMore than 350,000 acres protected and legislation for new National Park passed Boulder, Colorado— 22 October 2003 - The Nature Conservancy, a private non-profit organization, today announced completion of the Heart of the West campaign. Launched in 1998, the campaign was an unprecedented, comprehensive effort to advance conservation projects across Colorado and beyond - the largest and most successful conservation campaign in Colorado's history. This campaign was about saving Colorado's Last Great Places for both the natural and human communities. The campaign began with the goal of focusing on the protection of 15 priority sites and working to abate threats in these places. But the scope went far beyond that as the Conservancy gathered a set of key scientists and planners to do ecological assessments of the Central Shortgrass Prairie (our eastern plains) and the Southern Rocky Mountains. These assessments, which were completed during the initial years of the campaign, refined the understanding of the threats and opportunities and the appropriate approach to achieve success. The result is that the Conservancy worked with public agencies, private landowners and other partners in local communities to protect more than 350,000 acres and made significant progress toward the protection of an additional 195,000 acres. The campaign garnered over $80 million in donations of land, conservation easements, and public and private funds. Longtime Nature Conservancy supporters, Gates Family Foundation, El Pomar Foundation and the Great Outdoors Colorado Trust Fund (GOCO), are included among the donors and supporters. "Colorado landscapes are changing rapidly. We know that the prairies, rivers and high country we love so much today face an uncertain future here in Colorado," said Mark Falcone, co-chair of Heart of the West. "The donors, staff, volunteers and our partners all contributed to the most successful conservation effort ever in the state." "Our children and grandchildren will know a different place unless we act wisely and strategically to preserve our state's natural diversity. It makes sense that The Nature Conservancy led this effort to get the job done," said co-chair Kathy Loo. "The preservation effort represented by the Heart of the West campaign presented an opportunity to express the better side of the human spirit," said Charles Bedford, Acting State Director for The Nature Conservancy. "We hope that generations to come will look back to this time as one in which the people of Colorado expressed real hope and vision for the future of our beautiful state." One of the most visible successes of the campaign was the signing of a purchase agreement for the 97,000-acre Baca Ranch that when complete will result in the establishment of the Great Sand Dunes National Park, the creation of a new national wildlife refuge and significant additions to the Rio Grande National Forest. With the Conservancy's purchase of the adjacent 100,000-acre Medano-Zapata Ranch, over 400,000 acres will be put into permanent management for ecological and recreational values. This project halted the water exportation schemes that would have critically impacted the natural values and the local agricultural community. An unprecedented coalition of local, state and federal partners all aligned with the same goal in mind: the conservation of this awe-inspiring place. The campaign also focused on solutions to urgent threats such as altered fire regimes, non-native invasive species and altered hydrology. The Nature Conservancy also built upon its record of working with partners and employing innovative conservation strategies. In addition, projects outside of Colorado in places like Ecuador, Chile, Papau New Guinea and the Caribbean were supported by funds raised from Colorado donors. The Nature Conservancy is grateful for the generosity of Coloradans. The Last Great Places are landscapes where the natural world still bears hope and promise for all its inhabitants. The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, nonprofit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities representing the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 101 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. In Colorado, working with local communities and partners, close to 600,000 acres have been protected. Visit us on the Web at nature.org/colorado.
Statewide and Northwest Colorado Southeast Colorado Southwest Colorado Northeast Colorado Steve Chaney Rich Larson Mark Falcone
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