MONTE VISTA, Colorado, Sept. 14, 2006 - Ducks Unlimited (DU) is continuing its conservation work in the San Luis Valley with the hiring of Aaron Welch. Welch is working for both DU and the Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust (RiGHT) through a fellowship with the Colorado Conservation Trust. He will focus on conservation easements and land protection along the Rio Grande corridor.

Welch recently graduated from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies with a masters in conservation biology. He is a Colorado native, originally from Lakewood, Colorado.

DU has been working actively in the San Luis Valley and along the Rio Grande corridor for 11 years and has conserved 13,460 acres in the area.

RiGHT is the local land trust in the San Luis Valley and has been in operation for seven years. RiGHT has conserved 5,055 acres of the Valley’s most valuable agricultural lands and open space throughout the region. “Ducks Unlimited and RiGHT have both had great success in the valley, and I look forward to being a part of the community and the conservation effort here,” Welch said. He will be living in Monte Vista and can be contacted at (719)-580-1004.

RiGHT’s support comes from mostly within the San Luis Valley and they have recently started an initiative, the Rio Grande Initiative, to protect private lands along the Rio Grande through voluntary conservation easements.

With more than a million supporters, Ducks Unlimited is the world’s largest and most effective wetland and waterfowl conservation organization. The United States alone has lost more than half of its original wetlands - nature’s most productive ecosystem - and continues to lose more than 80,000 wetland acres each year.

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