Community-based Conservation Leads To New National Park

"It's rare for environmentalists and cattle ranchers to look at prime grazing land and pine-covered mountain slopes and see a common vision, much less one that includes federal ownership and environmental protection...Yet today, ranchers and farmers in the San Luis Valley are uniting with conservationists to transfer land to the US government and create America's 57th national park. The project has been lauded by both Republicans and Democrats as a model of private-public partnership. To many, it's also evidence of what can be accomplished with "community-based conservation," an approach that weighs economics alongside ecology, encourages input from local residents, and unites disparate groups around a common concern – in this case, water."

Thanks to Christian Peralta