Future 3,058-acre Groundhog Conservation Easement Receives Funding

A new conservation easement project by the Montezuma Land Conservancy (MLC) has received $1,527,000 from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

The Ivins conservation easement, a 3,058-acre project near the Lone Cone State Wildlife Area in Dolores County, will be funded through a $1,527,000 grant from the NRCS-Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP).

This project, adjacent to the Lone Cone State Wildlife Area, adds to MLC’s continued effort to preserve and protect historic working lands and critical wildlife habitat in the Groundhog region.

The 3,058-acre ranch protects productive water rights and crucial big game habitat, for species like Elk and black bear, along with preserving riparian habitat for river otter and golden eagles. Most crucially, the project ensures a critical migratory corridor for elk and mule deer between Lone Cone State Wildlife Area and Dry Creek Basin and Lower Disappointment Creek remains intact. With increased development throughout the region, preservation of these migratory corridors has become an increasingly urgent effort for MLC.

“This conservation easement expands upon the Ivins family’s existing conservation easement efforts,” said Clint Evans, State Conservationist for the NRCS in Colorado. “It will help protect a multi-generational, working, prime, agricultural ranch that helps protect and provide habitat for the federally listed threatened Lynx. The property also helps improve forage and vegetation for elk, deer, smaller mammals, and birds. The Family’s commitment to conserving this important agricultural landscape made this project a perfect fit for ACEP.”

This easement adds to the more than 15,000 acres of private lands already conserved in the Groundhog region, 6,750 acres of which are under easement thanks to the generosity and future-thinking of the Ivins family ranch. These lands, together protected over a multi-year and landscape-scale effort by MLC, will help to ensure a vibrant and biodiverse Groundhog region is available for people and wildlife for generations to come.

About the NRCS-Agricultural Conservation Easement Program  
The Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) protects the agricultural viability and related conservation values of eligible land by limiting nonagricultural uses which negatively affect agricultural uses and conservation values, protect grazing uses and related conservation values by restoring or conserving eligible grazing land, and protecting and restoring and enhancing wetlands on eligible land.