Colorado tests online land conservation guide

Colorado is one of five states selected to pilot the $5 million LandScope America project, an online educational conservation guide designed to enhance and inspire preservation of the nation’s lands and waters. The project will highlight conservation trends and illustrate how individual states and counties rank on various conservation measures.

LandScope Colorado, headed by the Colorado State University-based Colorado Natural Heritage Program, will provide access to information about the state’s natural areas.

"Our historical connection with the environment, along with our commitment to responsible natural-resource management, makes Colorado a perfect state to showcase the LandScope America project," said Gov. Bill Ritter.

In Colorado, the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area in Larimer County was selected as the state’s online landscape test site. The Soapstone Prairie, which extends across more than 18,000 acres of hilly short-grass prairie vegetation, safeguards the well-preserved Folsom sites that contain relics of populations that lived there more than 12,000 years ago.

Ecosystem documentation

An initiative of NatureServe and the National Geographic Society, LandScope America will explore the nation’s natural ecosystems to help determine where conservation efforts are most urgently needed. The project will document the changes that have reduced many U.S. natural ecosystems over the past century such as the widespread conversion of Midwestern prairies to agriculture, the logging of forests in the Pacific Northwest, and the razing of Southern California's oak woodlands and chaparral shrub lands.

The LandScope website will provide online aerial, topographical, and detailed maps for viewers to zoom from a national view to state and local perspectives anywhere in the country. GIS-developed data will provide critical information on the character and condition of a specific Colorado or U.S. location and the threats it faces.

The effects of housing development, for example, will be depicted on maps to provide a graphic representation of open space and natural habitats under greatest pressure. The website will also profile the decline of such natural resources as the ponderosa pine, longleaf pine, and tallgrass prairie to illustrate how some of the nation’s most widespread habitats can become profoundly depleted.

Use for data

Website data can be downloaded for use in land acquisitions, grant proposals, or to inform state or local legislative processes, say LandScope representatives.

Planned for release in fall 2008, the online resource will provide local governments, land trusts, and private landowners the best-available conservation science, information technology, and professional expertise to link people who care about, preserve, or work the nation’s land with those who act to protect it.

Access www.landscope.org for more information.

Anheuser-Busch, CSU partner on wildlife conservation, alternative fuels research

Beer and wildlife have converged, but not in a typical television-ad moment. Anheuser-Busch has committed a $50,000 fellowship to Colorado State University’s Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology for the study of wildlife habitat and the environment on Anheuser-Busch properties.

Anheuser-Busch has produced, packaged, and shipped its products in a responsible manner for generations, actively pursuing policies and technologies that reduce its impact on the environment. Today, nine Anheuser-Busch facilities have received Wildlife Habitat Council certification. The company’s Fort Collins facilities have been named Corporate Lands for Learning sites, which use on-site wildlife habitats for community education and Colorado State research.

Colorado State and the Anheuser-Busch Fort Collins brewery are also collaborating on other projects, including partnering with the Platte River Power Authority to evaluate the use of alternative fuels and working with the brewery’s Nutri-Turf farm to assess biofuel crops as a reliable fuel source.

The Nutri-Turf farm, located six miles east of the brewery on 7,000 fenced acres, applies leftover nutrient-rich water from the brewing process to help grow renewable biofuel crops. This year, the company successfully planted and harvested the renewable-energy crops canola and camelina and will consider dedicating more acreage for this fossil fuel replacement.

Based in St. Louis, Anheuser-Busch ranked No. 1 among beverage companies in Fortune Magazine's Most Admired U.S. and Global Companies list in 2007.