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Colorado Officials Praised for Securing Funds for Baca Ranch

Senators Campbell and Allard, Representative McInnis and Governor Owens partner with The Nature Conservancy to support new national park

Boulder, Colorado—29 October 2003—The Nature Conservancy today applauded the appropriation of $9 million from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund for the establishment of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Baca National Wildlife Refuge. The funds will be used for the acquisition of the 97,000-acre Baca Ranch, which borders the Great Sand Dunes National Monument and Preserve in the San Luis Valley, northeast of Alamosa. Acquisition of the Baca Ranch water rights ensures that adequate water resources will remain available to sustain the dunes ecosystem and the local agricultural community.

The Nature Conservancy executed a purchase agreement on the Baca Ranch in January, 2002 for a price of $31.28 million. This appropriation brings the Conservancy within striking distance of securing the funds needed to purchase the ranch. The Conservancy anticipates closing on the property next year, and once the remaining funds are received will transfer it to the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve and the Baca National Wildlife Refuge. Parts of the ranch will be transferred from the park service to the USDA Forest Service for inclusion in the Rio Grande National Forest. With the Conservancy's adjacent 100,000-acre Medano-Zapata Ranch, close to 400,000 acres will be put into permanent management for ecological and recreational values.

"This project would not have been possible without the enthusiastic support of many of Colorado's leaders including Senators Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Wayne Allard, Representative Scott McInnis and Governor Bill Owens," said Charles Bedford, the Conservancy's acting director in Colorado.

Roughly the size of Connecticut, the San Luis Valley is one of Colorado's most biologically significant regions. "Not only will the protection of the Baca Ranch create a protected area large enough to sustain the area's natural diversity for the long term, but it brought together an unprecedented coalition of local, state and federal partners, all aligned with the same goal in mind:  the conservation of this awe-inspiring place," said Bedford.

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.