Colorado West Land Trust and Black Canyon Regional Land Trust today announce that the organizations have merged and will move forward as Colorado West Land Trust. The two organizations have worked closely together over the last three years to protect the wonderful landscapes of western Colorado and combined the groups to best serve the region. The Land Trust will be headquartered in Grand Junction with a satellite office in Montrose.

“Our partnership has shown that we can best serve our community by banding together,” said Rob Bleiberg, Executive Director of Colorado West Land Trust. “With the economic stress and uncertainty of the pandemic, we determined that now is the time to merge the organizations as this will enhance our sustainability and the resiliency of land conservation work on the Western Slope.” Colorado West Land Trust received a grant from Great Outdoors Colorado to help cover the costs associated with the merger as part of its Resilient Communities Program.

In 2017, Mesa Land Trust and Black Canyon Regional Land Trust began a unique collaboration that consolidated operations under the banner of Colorado West Land Trust, a new trade name established by MLT. However, the organizations remained independent, separate legal entities. The groups did this to improve efficiency of operations to best serve the conservation needs across the region and to explore how both could effectively work together in the future. This approach has worked extremely well, leading the organizations to pursue a full, legal merger.

This merger will strengthen land conservation in the region and enable the Land Trust to better serve and work with landowners of conserved properties. It will also better prepare the Land Trust to meet the challenges of protecting the incredible landscapes of the Western Slope in the coming decades.