AROUND TOWN: Palmer Land Trust

Sustainability. It can be just the current catchphrase or, in the case of Palmer Land Trust, the yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Nothing shows it better than the Trust’s Southern Colorado Conservation Awards given annually to ranching families who are putting their land into conservation easements to keep their way of life intact for the future.

Generations of ranching families and a ballroom filled with those interested in making ecological stewardship a reality meshed at the recent awards reception at Cheyenne Mountain Resort.

Four major awards were announced:

The Frost Hanna Family was honored with the Stuart P. Dodge Award for “a tradition of caring for the land through holistic range management” and for inspiring “a conservation ethic in all whose lives they touch.” From the Fountain Creek Watershed Project to land preservation and protecting “open agricultural lands, wildlife areas and Fountain Creek between Fountain and Pueblo, these are multigenerational projects of the family. These were also the unrealized dreams of the late Kirk Hanna, whose goals and plans and beliefs are being carried forward into the future and will be the subject of a documentary.

Catamount Institute received the Stewardship Award for environmental education programs and projects presented to 3,000 young people each year. Other major programs include Pikes Peak Sustainable Business Network and Solutions Advancing a Green Economy.

The Winship Project, divided between four families and with the support of The Nature Conservancy,  is “a replicable model” and a means of “strengthening working ranches, sustaining rural communities and creating neighborhoods of conservation.”

Saguache Creek Corridor Landowners Alliance received the Friends of Open Space Award. It’s an alliance of 17 ranchers who have a 100-year-old cooperative management system. Since 1998 the landowners “have protected more than 12,800 acres of viable agricultural land along a 20-mile stretch of Saguache Creek.”

Full program descriptions: palmerlandtrust.org