Keep it Colorado has received $3 million in grants from Great Outdoors Colorado.

According to Melissa Daruna, the group's executive director, some of that money will help fund a new round of conservation projects to protect more critical watersheds and wildlife habitat and support local food systems.

She pointed to a recent easement at Edgerton Creek Ranch, part of a larger wildlife corridor in the Roaring Fork Valley. Daruna said the voluntary agreement allows family ranchers to continue working the land.

"And then provide perpetual habitat protection for the wildlife that live there as well," said Daruna, "including bald eagles, cutthroat trout, and a lot of big game species including elk and moose, black bear, mule deer."

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