Why Working Lands are a Cornerstone of Western Conservation

Western Landowners Alliance's Lesli Allison, who is featured in the film, in Elk Glade Ranch in Colorado

The American West is defined by its landscapes—a mix of vast public lands and critical private properties. The challenge of sustaining this natural heritage falls largely to the landowners who work the land every day.

In this interview, Lesli Allison, Executive Director of the Western Landowners Alliance (WLA), discusses the organization's focus on the economic viability of stewardship and reveals what she calls the "great untold story" of conservation happening on private working lands.

Q: What are the priority areas for the Western Landowners Alliance right now?

A: Right now, one of our priority areas is the economics of keeping these working lands intact and healthy. There’s really an unlevel playing field, as it were. The economic playing field is severely tilted in favor of using land for other kinds of uses.

You can make more developing it, you can make more making it into a solar farm, you can make more on almost anything else except keeping it whole and healthy. So, the question we're asking is: How do we find economic support for the kind of ecological stewardship that we need on these places? Not everybody can afford to invest in that stewardship on their own.

Q: And why is supporting those land values so important for all of us?

A: We need to support that stewardship if we want the lands to stay healthy because those lands are benefiting all of us. It’s about helping people be able to earn a livelihood taking care of all the values that we all care about and depend on in society—and that we all impact. It’s about allowing people to make a livelihood while also caring for clean water, clean air, climate moderation, flood control, wildfire mitigation, and also producing our food, fiber, and all those other things that we absolutely depend on.

Q: We hear a lot about public lands, but when it comes to private lands, what do you wish people knew about the conservation happening behind the gates?

A: I wish people knew that conservation is happening and that it’s happening at a scale they would find really inspiring and encouraging. To me, it's the great untold story, especially in the West.

I had a friend who spent most of her life hiking on public lands. She told me, "Lesli, until I got involved with WLA, I never realized that the wildlife are really on the private lands." She would hike on public lands, see some wildlife, and just assumed that's where all the wildlife were. She always heard bad things about ranchers, so she didn't think there would be wildlife on ranches. Now, she sees it's obvious that's where the wildlife is.