Conservation opportunities abound in the Colorado River Valley
The upper Colorado River watershed includes portions of the White River National Forest and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wildlands in Routt, Eagle, Pitkin and Garfield counties. While this area includes many protected public lands, it has an abundance of opportunities for additional protections, including wilderness study areas and other unprotected wilderness-quality lands. We’re also collaborating with stakeholders on a potential Wild and Scenic River designation for Deep Creek, one of the most picturesque tributaries of the Colorado River descending from the Flat Tops. The public lands and waters of the Colorado River Valley are diverse and varied, containing an incredible cross-section of ecosystems and biodiversity. With the local community and our conservation partners, we’re working hard to make sure it stays that way.
Keeping the Valley wild for good
We’ve spent more than a decade advocating for the BLM to expand protections for wilderness-quality lands in the Colorado River Valley, and we’ve been making incremental but important progress! We’re grateful that Eagle County has invited our members of Congress to have a community discussion about additional protections for public lands, and we’ll be engaging in that exciting process to ensure these BLM wildlands get the protections they deserve—and help make Colorado’s public lands more resilient by diversifying our protected ecosystems.
Nestled below the Flat Tops Wilderness and the snowy peaks of the Gore Range, the hills, plateaus, mesas and high valleys of the region’s often-overlooked mid-elevation “uplands” support a wealth of plant and animal diversity. In today’s world, uplands are becoming more and more important as places where animals can move up, down and across landscapes, connecting habitat, food sources and places to breed and raise their young. Yet, many of these areas lack formal protections and continue to face mounting threats. New protections in the Colorado River Valley would help these important upland ecosystems thrive as climate adaptation and resilience become ever more important.
