Our Partners

The Colorado landscape is defined by our open land and waters. For many generations after statehood, it was the farmers and ranchers whose stewardship of these open places also provided a home for riparian species.

Although still important partners for habitat protection, the settling and urbanization of much of Colorado has taken much of the farm and ranch land protection away. As people woke up slowly to this loss of passive protection, many new methods of protection emerged.

Colorado citizens voted in the Great Outdoors Colorado program to buy land to protect open spaces. The Division of Wildlife adopted may protective regulations to prevent overfishing, overhunting and overuse. The Federal Government through it's various agencies also adopted many different land use regulations to prevent users from spoiling the environment they sought to enjoy.

Still, there was and is a need for private action. Sportsman and conservationists have often banded together to acquire small tracts of land to protect it from overuse and to provide specialized habitat for recovery of species that were headed for endangerment. More formal nonprofit groups, such as the Nature Conservancy, have also made valuable purchases of land to preserve rural community character and riparian resources. Individuals have also been encouraged by the state of Colorado to abstain from subdividing their land by a program of conservation easements. Still others have partnered with widlife interests to provide large enough tracks of land to provide meaningful sanctuaries in ecosystems that are in danger of being overrun by recreation pressure.

All of these different actions form a matrix of protection for the work that Creekside serves to support...sustainable riparian environments.