When it comes to preserving open space, Utah politicians can hardly be called visionary.
Historically, there have been few state-funded preservation efforts as lawmakers have steadfastly refused to spend tax dollars on land conservation. But Utah residents appear to have a more open mind and open pocketbook on these matters.
Take the Nature Conservancy of Utah's fund-raising drive. In just four years, the nonprofit conservancy has pulled in $14.9 million in contributions from more than 9,000 public and private donors to protect some of Utah's more precious landscapes.
As a result, 65 conservation projects have now been completed at 44 sites in Utah.
To celebrate, former Utah residents Ian Cumming and his wife, Annette, are hosting a private, invitation-only party Tuesday at Cumming's business headquarters in the Keith-Brown mansion on South Temple.
The invitation list is a virtual who's who of Utah business, community and conservation leaders who have donated time, money and influence to the effort.
"This is the kind of time to take stock in what we're able to accomplish," said Dave Livermore, the Utah director of the Nature Conservancy.
Although contributions come from around the country, most of the $14.9 million has come from Utah.
"What this shows is that land conservation campaigns in Utah can be very popular and successful," said Mike Weland, executive director of the Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission.
"It's very worthy of celebrating," he added. "What the Nature Conservancy has done is give land conservation an identity and prove that it's both popular and successful."
The Nature Conservancy has been around since 1986. Yet more than half of what the conservancy has achieved was done within the past four years.
Two deals in particular have attracted wide attention. One was a $4.62 million deal to buy the 5,200-acre Dugout Ranch and its adjacent 255,000 acres in federal grazing allotments in San Juan County. A total of $6.4 million was raised to help maintain the property so cows wouldn't be replaced by condos. The complicated deal involved years of wheeling and dealing. but in the end the conservancy kept it as a working ranch.
The other was a $1.7 million transaction that expands the Layton Wetlands Preserve to nearly 3,000 acres and protects Great Salt Lake wetlands habitat used by millions of migratory birds.
The success of the Nature Conservancy campaign would seem to fly in the face of recent attempts by the Utah Legislature to limit open space preservation. Repeatedly, lawmakers have defeated efforts to allow local governments to use tax dollars to acquire open space, and they have opposed Gov. Mike Leavitt's plans to create an open space preservation fund whereby state money could be used to match private donations.
Even private projects like the Nature Conservancy's efforts to acquire private ranches in the Book Cliffs of eastern Utah have met with open resistance from lawmakers and county commissioners who say such efforts further diminish the availability of private lands available for development and farming.
The success of the conservancy's Utah Land Legacy Campaign makes lawmakers appear to be out of step with public sentiment.
But Livermore thinks the public has come around in recent years to become more protective of Utah's beauty.
"People from Utah are closely tied to the land," Livermore said. "They also realize that quality of life is linked to open space."
Perhaps the reason individuals and groups are willing to donate to the Nature Conservancy's cause is because of its reputation of working with landowners and government.
In Utah, the lands acquired for conservation purposes are often deeded to government management agencies, but sometimes, at least in the case of ranches, they have been maintained as working ranches but with an eye toward preservation of fragile ecosystems.
The conservancy is rarely involved in litigation initiated by other environmental groups to force government compliance with environmental laws and regulations. Instead, conservancy officials are more often found working in tandem with county and state planners to pull off conservation projects the local governments want but can't afford.
That cooperative attitude has made the conservancy a rare bird in the volatile and confrontational world of environmental politics. But it also has resulted in unprecedented support from would-be donors, many of them conservatives who cringe at the tactics of more-activist groups.
"As Utah grows we're not saying everything deserves protection," Livermore said. "We just have ecological gems that are an important part of our natural heritage we should hang on to."
Staff writer Jerry D. Spangler contributed to this report.