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Troubling Appointment for Colorado Agriculture - New Director of the Colorado State Land Board

  • Writer: Western Justice News Desk
    Western Justice News Desk
  • Jun 2
  • 4 min read


Nicole Rosmarino is the sole finalist to fill the role of director of the Colorado State Land Board. Rosmarino’s well-documented advocacy for rewilding and her leadership in organizations such as WildEarth Guardians and the Southern Plains Land Trust raise serious concerns about the direction in which Colorado public lands policy may be heading.


Rosmarino has spent decades promoting the rewilding ideology that prioritizes the removal of livestock and the return of apex predators such as wolves and cougars to Western landscapes. Rewilding seeks to remove human influence from vast tracts of land across the nation. This movement has even celebrated hostile acquisitions of ranchland. It threatens our rural communities and agricultural and energy production in the state and undermines land stewardship by ranchers and rural landowners who have managed land in Colorado for generations.


WildEarth Guardians

Rosmarino was the Director of Wildlife Programs at WildEarth Guardians (WEG). The agenda of WEG is explicitly anti-livestock. The organization frames ranchers as obstacles to ecological purity rather than as partners in conservation.


WEG has a long history of actively litigating against public land grazing, pushing for predator reintroductions without local consent, and obstructing water infrastructure critical to ranching operations. They have actively filed lawsuits and appealed decisions related to grazing permits, arguing that they are detrimental to the environment and wildlife. They also promote legislation to require the retirement of grazing permits, claiming on their website that, “Permit retirement is economically rational, fiscally prudent, socially just, politically pragmatic and ecologically necessary.”

Southern Plains Land Trust

Southern Plains Land Trust (SPLT) is an organization that fundraises to purchase lands and take them out of livestock grazing in the name of “preserving ecosystems”. The SPTL website shows they are staffed with people actively working against livestock grazing and animal agriculture in general. Their team affiliations range from running a farm animal rescue to one team member also serving as the Colorado State Director for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) , now called A Humane World for Animals (HWFA). The HSUS/HWFA has a long history of moves against animal agriculture. According to their website, to date, SPLT as a member of the Land Trust Alliance, has incorporated more than 60,000 acres into their “reserve network”.


The Rewilding Institute

The Rewilding Institute, similarly, advocates for the creation of vast, unbroken corridors for wildlife, often at the expense of private property rights and long-standing grazing leases. Their vision includes “cores, corridors, and carnivores,” a euphemism for removing humans and livestock from millions of acres to make room for wolves, bears, and mountain lions. It is a vision that is not only incompatible with agricultural production but is inherently hostile to it.


Rewilding is a Constitutional Concern

Beyond the practical harm to ranching, the rewilding ideology raises constitutional questions. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. The rewilding movement often bypasses this by targeting regulatory restrictions, de facto takings, and the manipulation of public land policy to make ranching economically unviable. When public agencies adopt these goals, they blur the line between public land management and ideological activism.


Why is the Colorado Governor Appointing a Person Whose Ideology Opposes the Mission of the Colorado State Land Board?

In her Colorado Politics article, Rachel Gable wrote, “By placing one of his cronies in control of the State Land Board’s 2.8 million surface acres and 4.0 million mineral estate acres, the last thing standing between Gov. Jared Polis and his renewable energy goals — production agriculture — can be hamstrung. His appointment of Nicole Rosmarino as the new SLB director will solidify him as the nation’s most anti-rural, anti-agriculture governor.”


Public lands in Colorado were intended to support public schools and generate revenue through productive use, often through grazing leases. According to the Colorado State Land Board website, “In 1876, the Colorado Constitution created the Colorado State Board of Land Commissioners (State Land Board), which manages lands that the Federal Government granted to Colorado in public trust.


We are the second-largest landowner in Colorado, with 2.8 million surface acres and 4.0 million mineral estate acres. A dual mission guides State Land Board management of these assets: to produce reasonable and consistent income over time, and to provide sound stewardship of the state trust assets. Our lands are held in eight public land trusts, which benefit public schools and public institutions.”


If Rosmarino leverages her position to curtail these leases or shift management toward preservationist models, it would contradict the very purpose of the State Land Board’s mandate. Her rewilding activist ideology threatens to politicize what should be a balanced and economically grounded stewardship of public lands in Colorado.


Rural America Deserves Better

Rural Coloradans, especially livestock producers, are right to sound the alarm. This is not about whether wildlife matters. This appointment is about whether the people who have lived on, worked, and cared for Colorado public lands for generations will continue to have a voice, or whether they will be silenced by an agenda that prioritizes wolves over families, ideology over practicality, and rewilding over agricultural production and rural prosperity.


Colorado needs leadership grounded in balance, economic sense, and respect for the working people of Colorado—not a rewilding crusader willing to sacrifice livelihoods on the altar of ecological utopianism.


Links:


Colorado Accountability Project article HERE


5th Amendment of the United States Constitution HERE


Information about the Colorado State Land Board HERE


The Fence Post article about the appointment of Rosmarino HERE


Article in Colorado Politics HERE


Article on WildEarth Guardians website about legislation to retire grazing permits to keep livestock off of public lands HERE


The Fence Post article about Southern Plains Land Trust HERE


The Cavalry Group: Animal Free Farming HERE

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