Saving the La Jara, a Colorado Treasure in the Rio Grande Headwaters
This spring, Western Rivers Conservancy began a partnership with the Colorado State Land Board (SLB) in the hopes of permanently protecting one of the most important landscapes in the San Luis Valley: the 45,650-acre La Jara Basin property, centered at La Jara Creek and flanked by the Rio Grande National Forest, BLM land, wilderness and several Colorado State Wildlife Areas.
Much of the La Jara Basin has been owned and managed by the SLB since Colorado’s statehood in 1876. It is one of the San Luis Valley’s great community treasures, a vast swath of public land with all the benefits that conservation landscapes provide, from recreation to seasonal grazing to the climate benefits of intact open space and free-flowing streams. It is also home to important Native American and cultural sites, some dating back to the earliest signs of human habitation in North America.
Although the La Jara Basin property is critical from a conservation perspective, it no longer meets the objectives of the SLB’s mission to generate income for public schools. Given the immense natural and cultural relevance of the La Jara Basin, WRC has taken up the call and partnered with the SLB to permanently conserve the property while generating significant school funding. WRC has since assembled a diverse partnership of state and federal natural resource land management agencies to initiate a fundraising strategy for public acquisition of the property.
For WRC, the great value of the La Jara is its relationship to the upper Rio Grande, the lifeline of the San Luis Valley. More than 30 miles of perennial cold-water streams flow through the property, including La Jara Creek, Jim Creek and Torsido Creek, all of which feed the Rio Grande. Jim and Torsido Creeks support populations of Rio Grande cutthroat trout (a Colorado Species of Special Concern), and the eastern portion of the property provides critical winter range for big game like elk, bighorn sheep and mule deer. The 635-acre La Jara Reservoir, which is also located within the property, is managed as a State Wildlife Area by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
The La Jara Basin is extremely important to the people of the San Luis Valley, including some of Colorado’s most underserved communities. For centuries, people have utilized the property for hunting and fishing, and local families have leased parts of the La Jara for seasonal grazing for as many as six generations. Looking further back, research on the eastern flank of the property has uncovered hundreds of archaeological sites and isolated finds, including a site known as La Botica, or “the pharmacy.” Eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, the site contains evidence of 8,000 years of medicinal plant gathering.
WRC is uniquely positioned to deliver the conservation outcomes that the SLB, our agency partners and the communities of the San Luis Valley seek. For nearly a decade, we have been working in partnership with local organizations to protect habitat and public access in the San Luis Valley. WRC also recently wrapped up a four-year conservation initiative in the valley in partnership with the LOR Foundation, Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust and Colorado Open Lands. Now, we have the tremendous opportunity to build on these efforts and ensure the lasting protection of the vast and vulnerable landscape of the La Jara Basin.
