Sidebar by Ed Quillen
Land Use – June 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
Conservation Easements involve two principals: the landowner who sells the easement, and the non-profit corporation (generally known as a Land Trust) which acquires and administers the easement.
Different Land Trusts have different goals. Some want to preserve relatively pristine environments and therefore have rather restrictive easements, while others (like the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust) aim at keeping the land in agricultural production, and they’re not real concerned about how the land is grazed or fenced.
Some Land Trusts are very local — the San Isabel Foundation, for instance, works only in Custer and Huerfano counties, where it has seven Conservation Easements across 4,783 acres. Others, like the Nature Conservancy, are spread across the continent.
As non-profit organizations, Land Trusts generally operate like other charities — they raise money from their members. Some money from GOCO (Great Outdoors Colorado funds from Lotto) goes to Land Trusts for buying Conservation Easements when the GOCO board decides it’s in the state’s interest, and some municipal or county open-space programs use tax funds to purchase Conservation Easements.
It is important to note that the land does not become open to the public as a result of a Conservation Easement. That might happen as a result of another transaction, but the Conservation Easement itself provides access only to the easement holder for inspections, which typically happen once a year.
Operating land trusts in our part of the world include:
Crested Butte Land Trust, P.O. Box 2224, Crested Butte CO 81224; 970-349-1206, cblandtrust.org
Gunnison Ranchland Conservation Legacy, 108 W Tomichi Suite 1, Gunnison CO 81230, 970-641-4386, legacy@gunnison.com
Crestone/Baca Land Trust, P.O. Box 893, Crestone CO 81131; 719-256-5229, crestonelandtrust.org
Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust, 0881 Highway 285, Monte Vista CO 81144, 719-852-4015, right@fone.net
San Isabel Foundation, P.O. Box 124, Westcliffe CO 81252, 719-783-3018, sanisabel.org
The Land Trust of the Upper Arkansas, based in Salida, isn’t in full operation yet, since it was organized only a year ago, and state law requires two years of mentoring from an established land trust (the Palmer Foundation of Colorado Springs in this case) before a trust can start acquiring and managing Conservation Easements on its own.
Bruce Goforth, LTUA president, said the trust has about 30 members who’ve contributed money, and it also received some start-up funds from GOCO.
“We’re not in a position to be buying easements,” he said, “but we’ll be able to administer local Conservation Easements if they’re donated.”
When the two-year mentoring period is up, LTUA will take over a 400-acre easement near the Game Trail subdivision northwest of Buena Vista; the private land has been set aside as elk migration corridor.
By the time this appears in print, the LTUA should have its website running at ltua.org, and brochures and other information will be available this summer.
–E.Q.