Conservationists in southern Colorado are excited with the prospect of obtaining funding from the Great American Outdoors Act passed last week by Congress to use to protect more ranchland in the Navajo River Watershed.
They point to the conservation of the Banded Peak ranch east of Pagosa Springs explaining a 30-year and $37 million effort now protects 10 different ranches in the watershed, reported the Colorado Sun.
The conservation easement on the 16,723-acre Banded Peak Ranch marks 65,000 acres of wilderness-surrounded ranches forever protected from development along the Little Navajo and East Fork of the San Juan rivers, both of which feed the Colorado River. The Navajo River Watershed provides drinking and irrigation water for 1 million people in New Mexico, including Albuquerque.
Click here to read the entire story in the Colorado Sun.
