Montezuma Land Conservancy (MLC) is a land trust working on land protection projects, placing a heavy emphasis on community-centered conservation initiatives that serve and engage a wider population than traditional land conservation efforts. MLC’s expansive efforts include a focus on education programs serving youth and adults, cross-cultural conservation efforts in partnership with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe (UMUT), and an emerging farmland access project, now known as the Community Land Partnership of the Southwest.
In partnership with the UMUT, the Traditional Harvest Project aims to restore Tribal member access to ancestral homelands for harvesting culturally relevant plants and materials for ceremonies and other purposes. The project involves 28 private landowners. Over 8,000 acres of land are available for tribal access and harvesting, and in some cases, tribal-informed restoration projects that support native plant habitat. This work is guided by a commitment to integrating Western science and data with indigenous knowledge. MLC also manages an 83-acre educational farm hub, Fozzie’s Farm, a hub for community and educational programs.
Since 2022, a collaboration of representatives from La Plata Open Space Conservancy, Montezuma Land Conservancy, the Farmer-in-Training Program at The Old Fort at Fort Lewis College, RMFU’s Cooperative Development Center, and others worked together to explore solutions to land access issues. After three years of listening sessions and researching land access models from around the country, MLC has created a
land-holding organization, in the form of an LLC, with the development of board of managers tasked with land acquisitions and management of those lands for long-term accessibility for young and beginning farmers and ranchers.
