the view looking northeast from the Roaring Fork River bridge at Aspen Glen is pictured near Carbondale. A statewide program providing funds to outdoor sustainability groups now covers three-quarters of the state and has awarded $4.9 million to various organizations, including the Roaring Fork Outdoor Coalition.
John Stroud/Post Independent
A Colorado program seeking to build and bolster regional partnerships focused on outdoor conservation and sustainability now covers roughly 75% of the state.
The Outdoor Regional Partnerships Initiative, the result of a 2020 executive order by Gov. Jared Polis, provides financial support for local and regional coalition groups aiming to improve and protect the state’s public lands, watersheds and wildlife while providing equitable and sustainable access to the outdoors. Grant funding comes from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and Great Outdoors Colorado.
When the program first launched in 2021, it provided funding to seven regional organizations. Today, it supports 20 coalition members covering three-quarters of the state, said Colorado Parks and Wildlife Regional Partnership program coordinator Morgan Anderson.
“I think this shows this program brings a lot of value to communities across Colorado, whether you’re a mountain town or on the Western Slope or the plains,” Anderson said.
To date, the initiative has awarded $4.9 million in grant funding.
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Earlier this week, the governor’s office announced the most recent recipients from the last grant cycle, awarding a combined $1.3 million to nine partnership organizations. Those included established groups like the Eagle County Community Wildlife Roundtable and the Roaring Fork Outdoor Coalition as well as two new groups, the Southeast Colorado Recreation Outdoor Alliance Movement and the Pagosa Area Recreation Coalition.
The most recent cycle provides funds to help coalition groups develop new land management and sustainability plans as well as marketing and communication materials.
“This brings a lot of support for communities to think about things in a grassroots way when it comes to how to harness recreation for the interests of the community, the interest of tourists but also how to protect different wildlife habitats or preserve habitat connectivity,” Anderson said. “Colorado is so variable when you look at it as a whole … this program is designed to be informed by the experts within those communities.”
Below are the groups that were awarded funds in the most recent grant cycle:
Eagle County Community Wildlife Roundtable — $15,000
Central Colorado Recreation Partnership — $125,000
Montelores Coalition in southwest Colorado — $214,410
Northwest Colorado Outdoor Coalition — $220,210
Outdoor Pikes Peak Initiative — $186,596
Pagosa Area Recreation Coalition — $125,000
Roaring Fork Outdoor Coalition — $125,000
Southeast Colorado Recreation Outdoor Alliance Movement — $75,000
West Slope Outdoors Alliance — $250,000
Recreation leaders in the High Country say the grant program helps keep the state’s eye on outdoor sustainability amid a booming tourism and recreation industry.
A report earlier this month from the Colorado Tourism Office showed continued growth in travel and visitor spending in the central mountain region that is home to ski resorts, 14ers and popular attractions like Hanging Lake and Maroon Bells.
The region saw $94 million more in tourism-related spending last year — a 2.3% increase from 2022 — for a total of $4.3 billion. When comparing 2019 to 2023, visitation and visitor spending increased nearly 8%.
Additionally, data from the White River National Forest, which encompasses central mountain and Western Slope counties, shows that visitation grew by roughly 50% between 2017 and 2022 — making it the most popular national forest in the country.
For groups like the Eagle County Community Wildlife Roundtable, which formed in 2019 but has since rebooted to better align with the statewide partnership, the grants will help plan for the long-term future.
Jessica Foulis, executive director of the Eagle Valley Land Trust and member of the Eagle County Community Wildlife Roundtable, said the recent grant funding will go toward a countywide conservation and recreation assessment.
The review will help land managers, local governments and community groups identify and pursue collaborative projects for wildlife safety over the next 10 years. Doing so will help local partners cost-share potentially expensive projects and implement plans that are cross-jurisdictional. Ideas could include wildlife crossings over busy interchanges like U.S. Highway 6 and Interstate 70 and strategic land acquisition and preservation.
Gates keep hikers off the North Trail for the final day of seasonal wildlife closures on June 20, 2024 in Vail. Wildlife in Eagle County remains a “hot topic,” said Jessica Foulis, executive director of the Eagle Valley Land Trust and member of the Eagle County Community Wildlife Roundtable. Since its founding in 2019, the roundtable has helped lead several countywide initiatives, such as an interactive online map that traces wildlife habitats and migration. Chris Dillman/Vail Daily
Foulis said the grant program “says a lot about our state and that we care very deeply about our natural resources and we’re working very hard and proactively to protect them.”
“This is the main type of funding source for this work for us,” she added, “so this would not be happening in Eagle County without this funding source.”
Carly O’Connell, a senior planner for Pitkin County Open Space and member of the Roaring Fork Outdoor Coalition, said her group plans to use the new round of funding to develop a holistic approach to recreation management across several Western Slope communities.
“I think the Roaring Fork Outdoor Coalition recognizes that, for a long time, this area has had an immense recreation draw,” O’Connell said. “But how do we move forward, collectively, to make sure recreation can be sustained in the future and protect our landscapes?”
The group, founded in 2021 following the creation of the Regional Partnerships Initiative, is a cross-jurisdictional partnership of public land managers, local government officials, nonprofits and other community members.
Spanning nearly 1,500 square miles, the Roaring Fork Outdoor Coalition represents the entire watershed for the Roaring Fork River, which stretches 70 miles from Independence Pass to its confluence with the Colorado River in Glenwood Springs. The watershed includes lands within Eagle, Pitkin, Garfield and Gunnison counties representing a full-time population of roughly 43,000.
The group will use the $125,000 in new grant funding to develop its strategic plan over the next two years. The goal, O’Connell said, is to create advisory documents on conservation and recreation management that can be used by public land managers, governments and community partners.
A rafting company floats down the Colorado River past the confluence of the Roaring Fork River near Two Rivers Park in Glenwood Springs. The Roaring Fork Outdoor Coalition was one of nine regional groups that received funding from the latest round of grants from the state’s Outdoor Regional Partnerships Initiative. “I think Colorado has always been ahead in the country in addressing both outdoor recreation and outdoor conservation,” said Carly O’Connell, a senior planner for Pitkin County Open Space and member of the Roaring Fork Outdoor Coalition. “I think, as a state, this initiative sets that tone to continue leading that charge into the future and these partnerships help continue that state vision at the local level.”Chelsea Self/Post Independent
Specifically, the new strategic plan will combine data and research from two existing studies of the watershed: A biodiversity and connectivity study and a visitor use and experience assessment.
Both studies identified several needs in the region. The biodiversity and connectivity study, for example, calls for protecting large, isolated landscapes for bighorn sheep and reconnecting large areas that have been fragmented in the watershed. The visitor-use assessment showed the perception of crowding is more related to site facilities rather than negative visitor interactions.
“This regional partnership initiative represents this vehicle for all of us to join together to bring all this data, to bring all this research, and facilitate conversations among all of the folks in this region about how we conserve our landscapes and sustain the recreation pressures into the future,” O’Connell said.
The next round of grant applications will open on Sept. 3. More information can be found online at CPW.State.CO.US/colorado-outdoor-regional-partnerships-grants.
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Publish date : 2024-08-27 11:43:00
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