Flowing from the top of the Rockies to the Mississippi River, the Arkansas River is one of America’s mighty river systems. Its headwaters make up an ecological wonderland and a recreational hotspot, cutting through rugged canyon country full of hair-raising land features like rock hoodoos and rough crags.
This breathtaking Colorado landscape could be protected for future generations thanks to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) new emphasis on landscape-level planning and balancing conservation with other uses. Conservation groups, led by our friends at The Wilderness Society and Wild Connections, have crafted a proposal for an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC- a type of protective BLM designation) for over 100 thousand acres of land. The Arkansas River Corridor ACEC would protect BLM lands north of the Arkansas River between Salida and Cañon City.