| Saving the Land | | Print | |
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Saving the Land
By MARY JEAN PORTER Ranchers Reeves and Betsy Brown and the Mountain Park Environmental Center are being recognized for their conservation efforts. The Palmer Land Trust will honor the Browns and MPEC with 2010 Southern Colorado Conservation awards during a dinner at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 29 at the Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs. Four awards will be given that evening.
The Browns will receive The Friends of Open Space Award for their efforts in protecting a "significant" Southern Colorado property, according to the land trust. The Reeves live on the historic 3R Ranch in the foothills of the Wet Mountains near Beulah and have worked for years to make their operation a model for holistic range management. They put a conservation easement on their property with Colorado Open Lands and have helped to establish and/or direct the work of several land trusts across Colorado. They welcome students from Beulah, Rye and Pueblo to the 3R to learn about ranching, local food production and conservation, according to information supplied by the Palmer Land Trust. The Mountain Park Environmental Center, located in Pueblo Mountain Park at Beulah, will receive the Stewardship Award for having made a positive impact on the land and the way area residents understand and respect their relationship to it. For more than a decade, MPEC has taught environmental education classes to thousands of children and adults. Its main program is Earth Studies, which provides all fifth-graders of Pueblo City Schools with six full days of outdoor-based education during the school year. Since 2008, MPEC has managed the 611-acre Pueblo Mountain Park for the City of Pueblo. It has renovated two-thirds of the historic Horseshoe Lodge in the park, using green and energy-efficient building components, and is preparing for the third part of the renovation project. Dave Van Manen, MPEC executive director, said Colorado loses an estimated 90,000 acres of open space to residential and commercial development each year, and Colorado's historic farms and ranches shrink at a faster pace than in any other state. These private lands are important as "viewsheds," watersheds and wildlife habitat and for many other reasons. Van Manen said unless deliberate efforts are made to preserve open space and wild places, the losses will continue. This would be unfortunate for people, but it also would mean that people have failed in being responsible for the non-human neighbors living in these places. Other Palmer Land Trust 2010 conservation award winners are Judy Sellers, a landscape designer and garden writer; and the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Cost to attend the awards dinner is $50 and reservations can be made at the website, www.palmerlandtrust.org. Two programs also have been scheduled in Beulah to educate the public about land-conservation efforts in this area. They are:
To register or for more information, call MPEC at 485-4444. The programs are free to the public.
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