Keep It Colorado coalition hopes to conserve 3.3 million acres by 2033, but it needs lawmakers to renew and increase the state tax incentive program
conservation easement
Posted inOpinion Columns
Opinion: Ode to a true Coloradan
A centenarian of the Centennial State, Pieter Hondius Jr. was a quiet giant of the Colorado outdoors.
Posted inOutdoors
$25 million Mount Tom protection partnership creates modern model for conservation in Colorado
Great Outdoors Colorado, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Jefferson County Open Space, The Conservation Fund and private landowners partner to protect 2,000 acres for wildlife, recreation.
Posted inOpinion Columns
Opinion: Critics of land conservation easements have twisted the concept beyond reality
The misinformation being spread about the U.S. government’s recommendation to create locally led, voluntary campaigns to conserve and restore 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030 is so egregious that some Colorado landowners — the ones in the best position to use conservation for land and water protection — now believe conservation hurts […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Politics and Government
Colorado lawmakers are once again trying to pay landowners for rejected conservation easements
Persistent state legislators are once again hoping to compensate Colorado landowners whose conservation easement tax credits were rejected and clawed back years ago, this time with a bill whose price tag to the treasury would be about $155 million. The effort by Sens. Faith Winter, a Westminster Democrat, and Cleave Simpson, an Alamosa Republican, revives […]
Posted inEnvironment
A record number of Coloradans are pursuing conservation easements as land, water prices increase
Tony Caligiuri was ready for it to fall apart. Instead, the pandemic gave conservation in Colorado a boost. Soaring land values, spiking prices for water, legislation boosting incentives for landowners who protect their land and growing pressure to develop open land has fueled a record year for conservation easements in Colorado. “We were bracing ourselves […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Politics and Government
Colorado Democrats renege on deal, kill reparations bill for people mired in conservation tax credit problems
Colorado Democrats killed a conservation easement tax credit reparations bill on a party-line vote in the House Appropriations Committee Monday evening, apparently reneging on what Republicans assumed was a pact to support Senate Bill 33 and a related easement measure in the House. Senate Bill 33, which already passed the Senate, was approved 7-4 earlier […]
Posted inClimate, Environment, News, Politics and Government
Landowners who shaped Colorado’s conservation easement bill would receive hundreds of thousands of dollars if credits are restored
A controversial bill setting aside $149 million in reparations for state-rejected conservation tax credits is speeding ahead, despite renewed accusations that the proposal was steered by landowners who will benefit from repayments, including the family of a former state agriculture commissioner. The official working group that helped write Senate Bill 33 included three landowners who […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Politics and Government
Colorado could hand out up to $149 million in disputed conservation easement tax credits
Colorado lawmakers are considering a bill that would return up to $149 million to holders of conservation easement tax credits previously disqualified by the state, a revival of a decades-old scandal that appraisers say would be rewarding fraud. The measure, Senate Bill 33, would restore controversial easement tax credits issued from 2000 to 2013, some […]
Posted inClimate, Energy, Environment, Growth, News, Newsletters, Outdoors, Outsider
A bold plan to protect 30% of Colorado lands and waters by 2030
Conservationists in Colorado are dreaming big. In a time of political turmoil and legislative impotence, a consortium of Colorado conservation groups is floating an audacious plan to conserve 30% of the land in the state — roughly 20 million acres — by 2030. Since statehood, the state has protected only 6 million acres. The state […]