Part 4 of 8: The Operational Arm of Buffalo Commons Implementation
High Country Advocate Staff Report
While politicians deny any Buffalo Commons agenda exists, Southern Plains Land Trust is quietly building it on the ground—buying tens of thousands of acres in southeastern Colorado, eliminating livestock, reintroducing bison. They celebrate their mission openly, aided by a CPW Commissioner who works for them and taxpayer-funded GOCO grants.
WHO THEY ARE
In November 1998, Southern Plains Land Trust purchased its first property: 1,280 acres in Baca County, three miles from Comanche National Grasslands. Twenty-seven years later, that first purchase has grown into 60,000 acres across southeastern Colorado.
SPLT’s mission is explicit: “Buy the land, protect habitat for native flora and fauna, and let the prairie heal.” Their method is direct: purchase ranchland, remove livestock, eliminate fencing, encourage prairie dog colonies, reintroduce bison. No commercial grazing. No agricultural production. Just rewilding—returning land to a pre-settlement state.
Jay Tutchton serves simultaneously as CPW Commissioner and SPLT Preserve Manager—the most striking conflict of interest in Colorado conservation policy.
THE CONFLICT
Tutchton sits on the CPW Commission setting statewide wildlife policy. He votes on regulations, approves strategic priorities, and influences the State Wildlife Action Plan. CPW SWAP designates southeastern Colorado grasslands—exactly where SPLT operates—as critical conservation priorities.
The circle works: Tutchton influences CPW policies identifying southeastern Colorado as conservation priority. Those priorities create regulatory and economic pressures making ranching difficult. When ranches become economically marginal, owners sell. Who’s positioned to buy? Southern Plains Land Trust—Tutchton’s employer.
The funding deepens the problem. Great Outdoors Colorado distributes $50-60 million annually in lottery proceeds. GOCO’s board includes Tutchton and Dan Gibbs, DNR Director. GOCO has awarded over $3.1 million in grants to Southern Plains Land Trust: $310,700 for Heartland Ranch, $650,000 for Las Animas-Purgatoire River, $1 million for Jagers Phase 1, $1.2 million for Jagers Phases 2-3, plus smaller grants.
These are public lottery dollars flowing to a private organization where a GOCO board member works as staff. Even if Tutchton recuses himself from direct votes on SPLT grants, his presence shapes GOCO strategic direction and funding priorities.
THE ACQUISITION STRATEGY
SPLT acquisitions cluster strategically in Baca and Bent Counties, directly adjacent to Comanche National Grasslands, precisely where CPW SWAP identifies conservation priorities. According to their materials, they have “dramatically increased our pace of land acquisition” as economic pressures make land available.
The Ogallala Aquifer crisis, water rights transfers to cities, commodity price volatility, and regulatory burdens force ranching families to sell. When ranchers fail, SPLT is positioned to buy—often with GOCO funding. Their flagship property, Heartland Ranch Nature Preserve, encompasses 43,000 acres in Bent County.
Each purchase follows a pattern: acquire a working ranch, remove all livestock, modify fencing, encourage prairie dog colonies, introduce bison. These are not commercial operations. SPLT bison are “wild”—maintained as ecosystem restoration tools rather than agricultural products.
The economic impact devastates rural communities. Each ranch purchased means another family leaves. Schools lose students. Businesses lose customers. Tax bases decline because conservation land receives lower assessments than working agricultural property. This is not unintended consequence—it is the model. Fewer people means more wilderness.
THE REWILDING VISION
SPLT does not hide its ideology. Their materials explicitly describe “restoring the American Serengeti”—the Great Plains ecosystem when immense bison herds roamed and prairie dog colonies spanned hundreds of square miles.
Prairie dogs receive special protection on SPLT properties as keystone species. But colonies do not respect property boundaries. Colonies protected on SPLT land expand onto neighboring ranches. Ranchers who have spent generations controlling prairie dogs watch colonies spread from SPLT properties but cannot legally enter SPLT land to control the source.
SPLT vision aligns with the Great Plains Restoration Council, whose mission is explicit: “building the Buffalo Commons step-by-step.” The organization originally focused on Colorado but now describes operations across a five-state region. The goal: connecting preserves—SPLT holdings linking to Comanche National Grasslands and other conservation properties. Southeastern Colorado becomes buffalo prairie with minimal human presence.
THE LOCAL IMPACT
Drive through Baca or Bent County and the transformation is visible. For Sale signs on ranches. Closed businesses. Shrinking schools. Multi-generational operations—families who survived the Dust Bowl—selling out and leaving.
Remaining ranchers describe feeling surrounded. Prairie dogs from SPLT properties expand onto their land. They cannot get cost-share assistance for control because they are in ferret recovery areas. Property values decline. When they eventually sell, SPLT offers an exit—often at prices reflecting the distressed conditions conservation policies helped create.
SPLT purchases are technically voluntary, but how voluntary is a sale when water restrictions, regulatory burdens, prairie dog pressures, and predator conflicts make operation economically impossible? When your neighbors have all sold, when your children see no future in ranching, when every policy change makes your operation harder, accepting SPLT’s offer is not choice—it is capitulation to engineered conditions.
THE SYSTEMIC PICTURE
Consider the combined impact across southeastern Colorado. CPW State Wildlife Action Plan identifies conservation priorities. Those priorities create pressures making ranching difficult. Struggling ranchers become likely sellers. SPLT acquires land with GOCO grants. Comanche National Grasslands already exist as federal conservation areas. Private easements restrict use on additional properties.
Layer by layer, mechanism by mechanism, the landscape transforms. Some conversion through market transactions. Some through regulatory pressure. Some through state land decisions. Some through water transfers. Each mechanism operates independently with different justifications, but all advance the same vision: fewer ranchers, less agriculture, more wild land.
THE QUESTION OF LEGITIMACY
Southern Plains Land Trust is not doing anything illegal. They are a properly organized nonprofit conducting legal land transactions with explicit mission statements. The political connections are public information. GOCO grants are public record.
But legality does not establish legitimacy. The question is not whether SPLT has a right to purchase land. The question is whether public officials should work for private organizations benefiting from policies those officials help create. Whether taxpayer money should flow to organizations where government appointees serve as staff. Whether landscape transformation of this magnitude should occur through bureaucratic mechanisms rather than democratic processes.
Rural Coloradans are not opposed to all conservation. Many ranching families maintain easements on their own properties. What they oppose is a coordinated system using political appointments, public funding, and regulatory pressure to implement a vision treating their way of life as an obstacle to be removed.
A private organization with an explicit mission to end ranching employs a CPW Commissioner as preserve manager. That Commissioner sits on the board distributing public lottery money to his employer. Wildlife priorities they help establish identify exactly where their organization buys land.
This is not conservation in the traditional sense—habitat protection while maintaining working landscapes. This is land use transformation with political backing, taxpayer funding, and zero democratic input from rural communities being erased.
The Buffalo Commons is being built. Southern Plains Land Trust is building it. Colorado taxpayers are funding it. And rural communities are disappearing because of it.
The question is whether this transformation should happen through political appointments and organizational missions, or through democratic processes where affected communities have a voice.
Right now, they do not have that voice. They have appointed officials working for private organizations, public money advancing particular visions, and policies implemented without consent.
Unless rural Coloradans demand accountability. Unless voters question these conflicts. Unless someone asks whether this serves the public interest, or just the interests of appointed officials and the organizations they work for.
The land is being bought. The families are leaving. The communities are dying. This is Buffalo Commons in action.
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