Five ranches at the foot of Pueblo County’s highest peak have secured permanent protection from developers hoping to build subdivisions in the rural area.

In conjunction with the San Isabel Land Trust, the 500-acre Huckleberry Hills Ranch Inc. finalized a conservation easement for its property below 12,347-foot-tall Greenhorn Mountain.

“It was important to families whose parents had that vision of a secluded place to come and enjoy the beautiful Colorado outdoors and mountains,” the ranch’s manager Don Miller said.

“We feel blessed to own a slice of paradise and are honored to be able to preserve it,” said Laurie Sankey, president of Huckleberry Hills Ranch Inc. “Four of our five families inherited this land from our parents, most of whom have passed away. I think today they are smiling down on us in recognition of what this means to the future of the property they loved so dearly.”

Four of the five families were in favor of the easement after nearly 10 years of negotiations.

Talks began just before the 2008 financial crash when landowners across the southern Front Range were pressed by subdivision developers to sell.

“We were feeling the pressures and wanted to find a way to protect our children from those same pressures,” Miller said.

Although developers largely withdrew from the area after 2008, Miller has noticed interest is again growing in the area adjoining San Isabel National Forest, prompting the Huckleberry Hills owners to act.

“We haven’t had anyone beating down our doors lately, but there are enough development pressures along the urban-rural interface in Colorado for us to notice,” he said. “To the extent that we can forestall or postpone what we regard as inappropriate development of a beautiful area, we have to try to do that.”

The Huckleberry Hills easement brings the total number of easements held by the San Isabel trust to 133, protecting nearly 41,000 acres of working ranches, farm and forest lands, water resources, wildlife habitat and scenic spaces. In Pueblo County alone, the land trust holds 13 easements on about 2,400 acres.

Another recent conservation easement established in southern Colorado is on one of the state’s largest intact cattle ranches and least-known scenic gems located near the New Mexico border.

With a $1.9 million grant from Great Outdoors Colorado, another 25,000 acres of JE Canyon Ranch was placed under a conservation easement by The Nature Conservancy and Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust in December.

The easement adds to 24,600 acres previously protected on the Las Animas County property.