Colorado Ranch added as National Park.The 97,000-acre Baca Ranch, officially acquired by the National Park Service in March, will join the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. The purchase, which resulted from a combination of $31 million from public and private organizations, including the Land and Water Conservation Fund The United States' Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is a Federal program that was established by Act of Congress in 1965. The Act designated that a portion of receipts from offshore oil and gas leases[1] , The Nature Conservancy Nature Conservancy, nonprofit organization established in 1951 to preserve or aid in the preservation of natural environments. It protects wilderness areas in the United States and Canada and is affiliated with similar groups in Latin America and the Caribbean. , Yale University Yale University, at New Haven, Conn.; coeducational. Chartered as a collegiate school for men in 1701 largely as a result of the efforts of James Pierpont, it opened at Killingworth (now Clinton) in 1702, moved (1707) to Saybrook (now Old Saybrook), and in 1716 was and the Great Outdoors Colorado Trust, creates a new national park, to be called the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Baca National Wildlife Refuge  National Wildlife Refuge . "Along the rugged Sangre de Cristo mountains Sangre de Cristo Mountains (săng`grē də krĭs`tō), part of the S Rocky Mts., extending c.220 mi (350 km) from S central Colo. into N central N.Mex. rises the newest national park, preserving an unparalleled heritage of nature and offering an example of creative public-private cooperation," said U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), who helped secure the Baca Ranch deal. "Not only will the protection of the Baca Ranch create a protected area large enough to sustain the area's natural diversity for the long term, but it brought together an unprecedented coalition of local, state and federal partners, all aligned with the same goal in mind: the conservation of this awe-inspiring place," said The Nature Conservancy's Acting Director in Colorado, Charles Bedford, in a prepared statement. For more information about the park, please visit its Web site, www.nps.gov/ grsa/index.htm. |
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