Sep 5, 2009 6:30 pm US/Mountain
Photo Book Honors Those Who Save State Open Space
DENVER (CBS4) ―
The Front Range is home to thousands of acres of open space. It's a movement that begin in the early 1900s when Denver mayor Robert Speer created the Denver Mountain Parks.
It expanded in the 1950s when state parks were established at Eldorado Canyon, Golden Gate Canyon and Roxborough.
But over the years, private citizens have played a key role by putting their property into conservation easements. It's those landowners who are honored in the coffee table book "Portraits of Preservation."
Photographer Mike Strunk put together the book, taking photos of those properties and the owners over the course of the years. He's taken more than 90,000 images of scenery in Colorado and the West.
Strunk wants to make sure everyone understands how important it is to preserve the open spaces.
"All the Three Sisters Open Space that used to be the Alderfer hay field, that would have been a subdivision," Strunk said.
It's open space today because of a conversation easement.
"It's a win-win for everybody," said Strunk. "The land-owner continues to own the land, they can continue to do what they've always done with it, that is they can continue raising cattle, raising horses, haying the meadows. They can continue living there. If they want to sell it, they can sell it but the conversation easement stays with the land forever. That is the new buyer has to agree to the same conditions so the land will always be protected."
That protection means all Coloradans can enjoy large stretches of undeveloped land.
"From all of the Three Sisters to Blair Ranch to Elephant Mountain Park, which is a Denver city park, is protected forever as open space," he said.
And it's the images of those landscapes and the people who have made it happen who provide the inspiration for "Portraits of Preservation."
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