Trust Our Land: Land conservation in partnership

By Jessica Foulis

Since 2017, Eagle Valley Land Trust has celebrated local land conservation efforts with Farm to Fork, our annual fundraising gala and evening of camaraderie under the stars. This year’s Farm to Fork was held in August at Donovan’s Copper Bar Ranch, and it was a hugely successful event thanks to our many sponsors and supporters. 

The theme for this year was “Conservation in Partnership,” and generous sponsorship from the JMPM Fund and Colorado Wildlife Rescue allowed us to invite our partners in conservation to attend. These partners included Eagle County, the town of Vail, the Eagle County Community Wildlife Roundtable, Exploremos (formerly known as Eagle Valley Outdoor Movement), Vail Symposium, Walking Mountains Science Center, Wiggle Worm Gardens, and Eagle Valley Wild. 

One partner that we’re particularly excited to highlight is the Eagle County Conservation District, a standalone district that provides technical expertise and financial assistance to landowners and water rights holders through programs, education, and outreach. Their initiatives include Beyond Lawn, Noxious Weed Cost-Share, the Virtual Fencing Project, the S.T.A.R Program, and CoAgMet Stations.

Partnering with the Eagle County Conservation District is a natural fit for Eagle Valley Land Trust, as we provide support for public and private landowners working to conserve their land with a long-term view. A great example of this can be seen at Brush Creek Valley Ranch and Open Space, a property owned by Eagle County and permanently protected under a conservation easement with Eagle Valley Land Trust. This 1,671-acre parcel is one of the Eagle County Conservation District’s Colorado Soil Health fields. The Conservation District provides expertise and financial assistance to help Eagle County improve soil health practices and promote resilient vegetation on this property.  

Another example of the Land Trust/Conservation District partnership is our work supporting agricultural producers. A conservation easement with Eagle Valley Land Trust helps producers extract monetary value from their property to reinvest in their land or business, while still maintaining ownership of the property and continuing their day-to-day operations. The Eagle County Conservation District can also partner with the producers to provide financial support and know-how for on-the-ground stewardship. 

Adrian Brown, land conservation and stewardship manager with Eagle Valley Land Trust, believes that partnerships with producers are critical to the work we do, as the agricultural community holds “significant areas of legacy land and waterscapes that are windows to the heritage of Eagle County.” By working alongside producers to conserve their land, “we can protect relatively natural habitat of fish, wildlife, and plants, as well as preserve historically important land and structures,” Brown said.

For the last several years, Eagle Valley Land Trust has coordinated a Stewardship Series to recruit volunteers from our community to assist in stewardship projects on public lands. We’re expanding this program, in partnership with the Eagle County Conservation District, to include all large-scale landowners, public or private. A project that’s in the works for 2025 is removing 2 miles of barbed wire fencing on Bocco Mountain to improve wildlife habitat.

We encourage any large-scale landowner, especially agricultural producers in need of low-tech manual labor support, to learn more about the Stewardship Series by visiting evlt.org/landowners/stewardship or reaching out to Adrian Brown at adrian@evlt.org. 

Land conservation is an enormous endeavor, and it’s most effective when it happens in partnership. One way that our community as a whole can pitch in is with the Eagle County Conservation District’s ballot measure, which proposes a 0.15 mill levy on the assessed value of all real property within the Conservation District’s boundaries. 

Laura Bohannon, executive director of the Eagle County Conservation District, says that the mill levy will support all of their existing programs, including a drought-resilient cost-share to upgrade failing ditch systems. Bohannon adds that the mill levy will provide “incremental funding for high-priority natural resource projects, such as those listed in the Eagle River Community Water Plan.” 

As a community, we’ve done tremendous work to advance conservation efforts throughout the valley. As we move into the election season, we encourage you to help us continue this momentum. A vote in favor of the ballot measure is a vote to support more vital conservation work in Eagle County. 

Jessica Foulis is the Executive Director of the Eagle Valley Land Trust. Learn more about EVLT’s conservation work at evlt.org or visit the new Conservation Center in Edwards.