AECOM’s Rewilding Projects and the High Country Forests Assessment Contract
High Country Staff Report
In September 2025, the U.S. Forest Service opened a comment period on a draft assessment for the Cimarron and Comanche National Grasslands. The 286-page document will guide management decisions affecting 443,000 acres of southeastern Colorado for the next 15 years.
The Forest Service didn’t write it. AECOM did.
According to the agency’s FAQ document, the Forest Service contracted the assessment writing to AECOM through a competitive bid process. AECOM isn’t a Colorado firm with grasslands expertise. It’s a Dallas-based Fortune 500 corporation with 45,000 employees worldwide, $14.4 billion in annual revenue, and major contracts with the Defense Department, NASA, and FEMA. The company ranks number one globally in environmental consulting for seven consecutive years.
But AECOM’s environmental work extends beyond military base cleanup. Since 2019, the company has been founding partner in the Natural Capital Laboratory in Scotland, providing pro bono services to rewild 100 acres of forest near Loch Ness. AECOM developed its own natural capital accounting platform called EcoUplift. The company launched similar rewilding projects in Australia to restore areas damaged by fires and intensive agriculture. In published materials, AECOM explicitly states that rewilding and allowing nature to take back control is inherently good. The company’s goal is establishing flagship projects showing organizations how to undertake rewilding at scale.
When a corporation running rewilding projects writes the assessment identifying what needs to change on working lands, Colorado has questions. Especially when that assessment could set precedents affecting mountain forests across the High Country.
The Colorado Connection
AECOM maintains offices across Colorado—Denver, Lakewood, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Greenwood Village. The company works extensively with the Colorado Department of Transportation, managing CDOT’s RAMP program and capital projects. AECOM partnered with CDOT on the Rocky Mountain Hyperloop study and served as prime consultant for Denver Union Station’s $500 million renovation.
This Colorado presence matters because the Pike-San Isabel National Forest—which administers the Cimarron and Comanche Grasslands—manages nearly three million acres from the Kansas border to the Continental Divide. The same Forest Service administrative unit oversees both the grasslands where ranching dominates and the mountain forests where recreation drives Colorado’s economy. The Pike-San Isabel includes Pikes Peak, the Collegiate Peaks, seven wilderness areas, and some of Colorado’s most popular hiking, fishing, skiing, and rafting destinations.
AECOM’s grasslands assessment contract positions the company at a critical juncture. As the High Country faces its own planning revisions in coming years, the precedents set in grasslands planning matter enormously.
What’s Actually at Stake
Colorado’s High Country isn’t abstract federal land. It’s where Coloradans hunt elk, fish gold medal rivers, ski world-class terrain, raft legendary rapids, and hike iconic trails. The Arkansas River alone—managed partly by the Pike-San Isabel—draws hundreds of thousands for whitewater rafting and is designated gold medal trout water.
Wilderness designation fundamentally changes how federal land gets used. Under the Wilderness Act, wilderness areas prohibit commercial activities, motorized access, and mechanized transport. That means no mountain bikes. No motorized trail maintenance equipment. No helicopter rescue except emergencies. Commercial outfitters face severe restrictions. Even grazing gets heavily regulated.
When assessments identify areas as having wilderness characteristics, those areas become candidates for wilderness designation. Once designated, restrictions are permanent. Congress alone can reverse wilderness designation.
The Pike-San Isabel already contains seven designated wilderness areas. As plan revision begins for the three-million-acre administrative unit, assessments will identify additional areas with wilderness characteristics. Who writes those assessments matters. Whether they emphasize recreation access or pristine preservation matters.
How Assessments Drive Decisions
Forest Service guidance states that assessments evaluate existing information to determine what might need to change in management plans. Assessments don’t make decisions, but they frame everything that follows.
Whoever writes the assessment decides which data points to emphasize. The contractor writes the summaries decision-makers read. The contractor determines which trends get highlighted as concerning.
When AECOM’s corporate philosophy states that rewilding is inherently good and enabling rewilding at scale is a goal, the framing of assessments for public lands deserves scrutiny.
The High Country Question
As High Country forests enter plan revision, Colorado needs to ask: Who’s writing the assessments? What are their ideological commitments? Do they run rewilding projects?
The White River National Forest—Colorado’s most visited forest with legendary skiing at Vail, Aspen, and Breckenridge—will eventually undergo plan revision. The Grand Mesa-Uncompahgre-Gunnison forests with world-class hunting and mountain biking will undergo revision. The San Juan National Forest near Durango will undergo revision.
If AECOM or similar corporations with explicit rewilding commitments write those assessments, what gets identified as needing change? More wilderness designation restricting mountain bikes? More limitations on commercial outfitters? More constraints on ski area expansions?
The Recreation Economy
Colorado’s outdoor recreation economy generates $28 billion annually and supports 229,000 jobs. Mountain biking brings millions of visitors. Ski resorts employ tens of thousands. Rafting companies depend on accessible river corridors. Hunting outfitters rely on forest access.
Wilderness designation isn’t anti-recreation. Hiking, backpacking, hunting, fishing, and horseback riding continue in wilderness. But mechanized recreation stops. Commercial operations get restricted. Infrastructure improvements cease. Mountain bikers lose trails. Ski areas can’t expand. Search and rescue operations get complicated.
Questions Colorado Deserves Answered
Who selected AECOM for this contract? What were the evaluation criteria? Did anyone review AECOM’s public commitments to rewilding? Did anyone consider whether those commitments create bias?
What guidance did the Forest Service provide about balancing recreation access with conservation? How much did this contract cost? As High Country forests enter plan revision, will the Forest Service select contractors with explicit ideological commitments to rewilding, or firms with actual experience managing lands for multiple use?
What Happens Next
The grasslands assessment will be finalized. Then the Forest Service drafts a need to change document identifying required plan revisions. If that document recommends restrictions aligning with rewilding philosophy, Colorado should examine whether AECOM’s framing influenced recommendations.
The Pike-San Isabel administers both grasslands and mountain forests. As High Country planning begins, the patterns established in grasslands revision will matter. The contractors selected will matter. The ideological commitments those contractors bring will matter.
Colorado’s High Country is where outdoor recreation builds an economy. World-class skiing. Legendary fishing. Epic mountain biking. Renowned hunting. Spectacular rafting. These activities depend on access and multiple-use management.
What Colorado Can Do
Submit comments addressing contractor selection concerns. Demand answers about evaluation criteria and contract costs. Contact congressional representatives about federal contracting rules addressing ideological conflicts.
Watch High Country forest planning. Ask which contractors get selected. Examine their corporate sustainability mandates. Question whether they have actual Colorado experience managing lands for recreation and multiple use.
Build coalitions across recreation groups—hunters, anglers, mountain bikers, skiers, rafters, climbers—focused on ensuring assessments value recreation access alongside conservation.
Recognize that who writes assessments matters as much as what gets written. AECOM’s selection for grasslands planning could establish precedents affecting every major forest revision across Colorado’s High Country.
The Bottom Line
AECOM didn’t break rules. The Forest Service followed its competitive bid process. Nothing here is improper or illegal. But proper and legal don’t necessarily mean right.
When a Fortune 500 corporation running rewilding projects across three continents writes assessments guiding decisions for Colorado’s public lands, Coloradans have legitimate concerns about whose vision those assessments reflect.
The corporation writing about Colorado’s future might not share Colorado’s vision of what that future should look like.
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