Community-Centered Conservation

The mission of MLC is to change lives through land conservation by connecting people to place, forever. The organization was founded in 1998 by a group of local concerned citizens who saw that pressures of development were increasing on the stunning high desert and mountainous landscapes of Southwest Colorado and wanted to do something about it. The organization began working with landowners in the region to place conservation easements—permanent legal protections—on their lands, limiting unnecessary development and protecting the scenic vistas, wildlife habitat, agricultural heritage, and sites of cultural significance that make this region so special. Now, MLC has helped to conserve nearly 50,000 acres of land across a three-county region in Southwest Colorado. But beyond these impressive acreage numbers, what makes MLC so unique in their model as a land trust is the work they have been leaning into since 2016—work to bring the benefits of land conservation to as many people in their regional community as possible. 

The evolution began in 2016 when a couple of innovative landowners donated an 83-acre farm to MLC with the vision that the organization could steward the farm as an educational hub for the community. Fozzie’s Farm, located in Lewis, CO, is now home to an indoor classroom space powered by solar panels, fruit trees, pollinator gardens, rotational grazing practices, and a high tunnel for vegetable crop production. The farm is a living classroom, hosting educational opportunities for all ages, including school field trips for every grade level, paid internship and apprenticeship opportunities for youth and young adults in the fields of agriculture, recreation, and conservation, as well as land management workshops for adults and conservation professionals. To date, MLC has engage with nearly 5,000 students and visitors at the farm. 

The Traditional Harvest Project, highlighted in the recent national report(Se abre en una nueva ventana), started in 2021 when MLC began to build relationships with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, one of two federally recognized native tribes in Colorado. At the time, the Tribe was beginning to work on native plant habitat restoration activities on their Southwest Colorado reservation meant to counter the challenges of climate change and overharvesting within the finite boundaries of the reservation. In conversation with MLC, the Tribe’s Environmental Department began to wonder if the landowners that MLC works with off the reservation might be willing to allow for Tribal member access on those lands for traditional harvesting. MLC quickly began talking to landowners and hired an environmental advocate and member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe to serve as the organization’s Cross-Cultural Programs Director. Today, more than 20 landowners holding collectively over 8,000 acres of land in MLC’s service area are granting cultural access for plant harvesting and facilitating restoration projects that braid Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge with Western restoration science on those lands. The partnerships are improving land and habitat health and strengthening regional relationships and partnerships across cultures.