our first big conservation effort
Great Outdoors Colorado Trust Funding
In 2000 the Crestone/Baca Land Trust was awarded a $129,000 Land Conservation Grant from the Great Outdoors Colorado Trust Fund (GOCO). The grant enabled the Land Trust to purchase approximately 177 acres of the Cottonwood Creek Conservation Site. The Colorado Natural Heritage Program (CNHP) identified this area as a Potential Conservation Site of statewide significance. All of these lands have been transferred to the POA. In addition, GOCO agreed to provide technical assistance for transactional and organizational development.
This project was the culmination of tremendous grassroots support. Local, state and federal agencies, the Baca Grande Property Owner’s Association, Land Trust volunteers and numerous private individuals and landowners provided matching funds.
protecting a 33 million dollar
investment
Stand atop the highest dune at the Great Sand Dunes National Monument and look north. You will see the Sangre de Cristo Mountains etched gracefully by the ancient trickling of a dozen creeks. Five of these creeks - Cottonwood, Spanish, Willow and North and South Crestone Creeks - meander out of the Sangres through the town of Crestone and the Baca Grande subdivision onto the Baca National Wildlife Refuge (NWR).
In 2000 the Federal Government created the 92,500-acre Baca NWR as well as sections of Great Sand Dunes National Park and the Mountain Tract of the Rio Grande National Forest for the price of $33 million.
As explained by Thomas Hall, an attorney and founding Board Member of the Crestone/Baca Land Trust:
"What most people don't realize is that a city of twenty thousand people is waiting to be built in the foothills above the Baca [National Wildlife Refuge]."
Hall is referring to the Baca Grande subdivision, a 1970's era development that straddles four of the creeks on the sand sheet above the Refuge near the small town of Crestone.
Continues Hall:
"Only a thousand people live here now, but if this subdivision gets built out as platted it will have a devastating impact on the natural environment."
The subdivision was created at a time when wetland ecology was not well understood. An important system of riparian areas were simply platted over with roads and utilities. According to Ceal Smith, conservation biologist for the Land Trust:
"It’s an interesting reversal of conditions. The Crestone Baca community is an “urban sandwich” enclosed by pristine, but highly sensitive public lands. If developed to the full extent intended, the ecological, biological, cultural and hydrological values of the surrounding public lands - especially the Baca National Wildlife Refuge - could be seriously degraded."
The Colorado Natural Heritage Program identified the Cottonwood Conservation Site as a site of statewide biodiversity significance. They emphasized that the area is in need of urgent management and protection. This ecologically sensitive area contains significant wildlife habitat. Herds of antelope, elk, and mule deer, and species such as black bear, mountain lion, and coyote, live in and migrate through these communities. In addition, bald and golden eagles, Canadian geese, great horned owls, ducks, hawks and falcons are living in and migrating through wetlands on this site. All of these populations and their habitat are being displaced and diminished as development in the subdivision continues unabated. |
