Protect, Restore, Connect - Colorado Wild Evolves to Address a Warming World
By Jeff Parsons, CW Board President - Colorado Wild has always worked hard to position itself as a nimble and strategic organization. This mentality allows us to effectively adjust to changing circumstances, whether they are economic, political, or scientific. We particularly pride ourselves in the latter – planning our programs and strategies to take advantage of, and incorporate, new ecological information. Thus, as scientific evidence demonstrates the increasingly critical importance of habitat connectivity for Colorado’s mountain wildlife – particularly in light of climate change – Colorado Wild is adapting our programs to ensure we continue to do the most good with your membership support.
Starting with Colorado Wild’s summer board meeting near the Holy Cross Wilderness, the organization made a strategic decision to shift more of its attention and resources to maintaining connectivity between core habitat ranges. As part of this evolution in program focus, Colorado Wild is proud to introduce our “Protect, Restore, Connect” motto. This short motto encapsulates the three fundamental prongs of our work:
We work to ensure that healthy forest ecosystems are not degraded by development or ecologically inappropriate management decisions;
We work to return Colorado’s forested high country to healthy and productive conditions where decades of logging and fire-suppression have resulted in degradation; and
We now also turn our focus to protecting and returning wildlife habitat connectivity so that continued human settlement and changing climate conditions do not undermine wildlife values or the successes Colorado Wild has achieved in protecting and restoring Colorado’s forests.
Recently, Colorado Wild was awarded a prestigious grant from the Wildlife Conservation Society, allowing us to work with the Colorado Division of Wildlife and the Center for Native Ecosystems in a two-year partnership focused on wildlife corridor conservation. This grant will allow Colorado Wild to serve a leading role in the state in developing scientific data and wild land management strategies to better protect critical wildlife corridors. Needless to say, we are excited about this opportunity and see it as a breakthrough moment for the organization as it continues its 10-year legacy of protecting Colorado’s most vulnerable, yet valuable, lands and watersheds.
Stay tuned to www.coloradowild.org for more information and updates on our new programs and how you can continue to help keep Colorado wild.
