Preserving the land

Randy Rusk grew distressed watching developers buy up land near his family’s ranch in Westcliffe, which sits about 55 miles west of Pueblo between the Wet Mountains and the Sangre de Cristo range.

Across Colorado, some two million acres of farmland have been lost to development since the late 1990s. That averages about 3,000 acres every week over an entire decade.

The state’s farmers and ranchers once passed their land from one generation to the next. But that has become too costly when done in the conventional manner. Now, in return for tax breaks, ranchers such as Rusk have been able to protect their scenic acreage by donating or selling rights to develop their land in the future. These transactions – known as conservation easements – are complex enough to require the expertise of nonprofit groups known as land trusts. But the deals carry a cost. That’s where foundations have stepped in to make the difference between a transaction’s success or failure. The Gates Family Foundation and companies such as Xcel Energy and EnCana Oil and Gas have helped to provide matching funds required by public sources such as the lottery or local sales tax revenue. “We might not exist at all if not for the support of foundations . . . if not for their strategic investments,” says Chris West, who heads up the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust, the state’s largest holder of conservation easements. The group, the first in the country formed by a livestock association, has protected 350,000 acres of scenic meadows and open space in 35 counties so far.