From alpine forests to vast stretches of open plains, Colorado nurtures landscapes rich with natural diversity where cougar and black bear still roam, where native fish still swim and where songbirds return every spring. 

Steels Fork Ranch

Protecting nearly 50,000 acres of ranching and prairie heritage, the Steels Fork Ranch (formerly the Smith Ranch) exemplifies how ranching and conservation can work together for the benefit of nature and local communities. The Ranch is a partnership between the Colorado Land Board, the Conservancy and local ranchers to protect and sustain one of the richest natural gems on the Great Plains. This working ranch will provide grazing land for cattle while offering habitat for native animals like pronghorn, burrowing owl and the plains leopard frog. Teeming with more than 218 playas (small, temporary lakes) that provide vital wetland habitats for 20 known migratory birds, the ranch will operate according to a management plan which will be developed with partners, and it will be protected from future development by a conservation easement. The Steels Fork Ranch is the eastern anchor of the Peak to Prairie project, an ambitious Conservancy-led effort to conserve and link a landscape stretching from Pike’s Peak across the eastern plains of Colorado.

Colorado River Initiative

It is one of the iconic symbols of conservation in the American West, if not the world, with the Grand Canyon as its centerpiece. The Colorado River has shaped human history of the West from the Anasazi to the explorations of John Wesley Powell to the modern day. Today, the Colorado River is also a critical source of water for human needs, sustaining 30 million people and their economies. The Conservancy and its partners have long been engaged in on-the-ground projects throughout the Colorado River Basin. Moving forward, these projects will require a collective vision to implement a 10-year action plan for conservation at the basin-wide scale. The innovative plan calls upon conservation partners to join in an unprecedented effort. The goal: to benefit people and nature by maintaining the freshwater biodiversity of the Colorado River Basin (.pdf, 180kb) in concert with efforts to meet growing water supply needs.

Energy By Design

With more than 22,000 oil pads currently under consideration in Colorado, creating proactive plans to provide for both energy exploration and native wildlife needs is more important than ever. Sensitive species such as the mountain plover, sage grouse, pronghorn, pygmy rabbit, burrowing owl, ferruginous hawk — as well as critical pronghorn and elk migration corridors — currently exist in the path of one of the West’s largest natural gas extraction efforts. The Conservancy’s study of habitat throughout the “Three Corners” area (the convergence of Utah, Wyoming and Colorado) identified important places where oil and gas development should be avoided, and suggests other places of comparable energy value that could biologically withstand the impact of oil and gas development. The goal of the Conservancy’s work here is to help industry and land managers think more proactively about maintaining natural diversity — ideally, before drilling prospects even begin.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Mark Godfrey/TNC (Steels Fork Ranch, formerly the Smith Ranch); Photo © Susan Walsh (Volunteers building trail at Zapata Ranch).