Photo by CHRISTOPHER TOMLINSON/The Daily Sentinel
Article by DAN WEST Dan.West@gjsentinel.com
The Daily Sentinel, December 30, 2020–Coming into the Grand Valley from the east, your first view is of acres and acres of orchards and vineyards spreading out to the west. It’s a familiar sight to residents and a taste of what this area has to offer to visitors.
One of the ...
Continue Reading →
What is your vision for our community twenty years from now?
At the Mesa Land Trust, our vision is really quite simple. Look around the community today. Notice the wildlife habitat along the Colorado River, the orchards & vineyards in the East Valley, the irrigated farmland north and west of Grand Junction.
See the landscape of working ranches and large blocks of habitat in Glade Park, Unaweep Canyon, or in Plateau Valley. Appreciate the undeveloped lands that separate the Grand Valley’s municipalities. ...
Continue Reading →
Sept. 10th Daily Sentinel, by Dan West
The 16-acre parcel of conserved open space called Jurassic Flats on the Redlands was officially transferred from the Colorado West Land Trust to the city of Grand Junction last week.
The parcel at the northwest corner of Monument and South Camp roads is used informally by hikers and was purchased by the Colorado West Land Trust last year. Last fall, the city signed a lease agreement for the parcel.
“Our parks and recreation system has many ...
Continue Reading →
The Land Trust is excited to be working on a new kind of conservation project for the organization – Buying a property that will ultimately become a public park.
The 130 acre Three Sisters property offers a rare opportunity to acquire a strategic parcel that will improve access to an extremely popular non-motorized trail system, protect a scenic corridor leading to the Colorado National Monument, and provide recreational and environmental education opportunities
Bordered by BLM and City of Grand Junction land, Three ...
Continue Reading →
GRAND JUNCTION, CO–Mesa Land Trust will publicly announce its recent accreditation award at a press event on Tuesday April 7, 2009 at 12:30 pm. The media is invited to attend for news coverage and photos.
In becoming accredited, Mesa Land Trust joins the ranks of just 53 other conservation trusts nationwide that have attained this honor. Awarded by the Land Trust Accreditation Commission based in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., accreditation is limited to groups that meet national standards for excellence, uphold the ...
Continue Reading →
The beginning
In 1980, the Mesa Land Trust was founded by local landowners concerned about heightened development pressures presented by the oil-shale boom. John and Doris Butler, Harry Talbott, Blaine Derrick and Herman Allmaras spent many hours around the Butler’s coffee table forming and guiding the organization. The Land Trust began its work by preserving several small orchards on East Orchard Mesa and received its first three conservation easements in 1982.
The Land Trust was one of the nation’s first agricultural land ...
Continue Reading →
Colorado West Land Trust has received a grant enabling it to use remote technologies, such as satellite and aerial imagery, to monitor conservation properties as an alternative to in-person monitoring. Keep It Colorado, a nonprofit coalition of conservation partners that includes Colorado West Land Trust, awarded the grant. Keep It Colorado received investments of $155,000 from Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO)’s Resilient Communities program and the Gates Family Foundation and re-granted the funds to 12 land trusts across ...
Continue Reading →
Late last November, restoration ecologist David Varner led a group of Riverside Educational Center middle school students on an after-school working field trip to collect seed from native plants at the Three Sisters and Lunch Loop area on Monument Road. Learning about the different plants and following meticulous directions, the students collected an abundance of seeds.
Through another partnership with Colorado Mesa University professors Margot Becktell and Deb Kennard, students are now propagating the seeds in a greenhouse. Once the seedlings ...
Continue Reading →
When Jeremy and Candice Fouts signed the deed on a 1,707-acre ranch in Delta County, they had their children in mind. “We bought this property to make a deliberate lifestyle change and to do something together as a family,” Jeremy explains. “I grew up in eastern Oklahoma on a farm and ranch. A retired minister moved to my hometown from Delta, and he’s the one that taught me the love of hunting, fishing and being outdoors.”
“I also learned a lot of life skills working on a farm—how to treat others, how to respect the land and wildlife—that’s what set me up to have a ...
Continue Reading →
John Welfelt moves through a dense patch of willows and I lose sight of him for a moment. “Keep track of how much water you see!” he yells back with a sense of well-deserved pride. There’s water everywhere on his property; spring-fed reservoirs form a loose grid pattern that percolate water down to a wetland near the Uncompahgre River.
Rabbitbrush, three-leaf sumac, cattails and milkweed stand tall and thick against the shoreline of the ponds. Brush them aside and you see ...
Continue Reading →