Colorado Parks and Wildlife hosts listening sessions with Indigenous communities over state parks

DURANGO, Colo. — On the evening of Feb. 4, a small group gathered inside the Durango Public Library, passing around sticky notes and markers.

They wrote quietly at first: more preservation, hunting rules, wheelchair paths. Then they taped notes to a board and began sharing stories about state parks — the land and what they hoped could change.

For many in the room, Colorado’s state parks are not just places to camp or hike. They are ancestral homelands.

The meeting was one of eight listening sessions Colorado Parks and Wildlife is hosting to hear directly from Indigenous communities about how the state’s parks could better serve them.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife, with support from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, is offering seven in-person sessions and one virtual session statewide to gather feedback. The effort comes as state agencies work to strengthen tribal partnerships and rethink how public lands are managed and accessed.

“We want to understand the specific needs that are unique to Indigenous communities, both their cultural and spiritual relationship with the land, but also the hidden barriers and obstacles that we wouldn’t see if we weren’t engaging with community,” said Stacy Coleman, assistant director for tribal affairs at the Department of Natural Resources.

Long before Colorado became a state, Ute people inhabited most of what is now western and central Colorado. The 1873 Brunot Agreement forced the Ute people to give up 3.7 million acres in the San Juan Mountains to the U.S. government, opening the area to mining and displacing families farther south. Today, some of those same lands are designated as state parks.

Colorado now has 43 state parks. In 2025, the state passed a law granting free entry to enrolled members of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe statewide. Previously, free access applied only to four parks within the Brunot Agreement area.

At the Durango session, eight community members shared what state parks mean for them.

“State parks [are] not really recreational for us. It’s a way of life for us,” said Roshae Weaver, a Southern Ute tribal member.

She visits parks not only for fishing or camping but for traditional harvesting, such as pine needles for basket weaving.

Weaver said she worries about increasing traffic and year-round use.

“I would like more preservation,” she said. “Ute people, we are nomadic, so we would let lands rest for certain times of the year.”

A Navajo attendee spoke in favor of more intertribal education and recognition of Navajo ties to the region, noting that Hesperus Mountain, known as Dibé Ntsaa, the Sacred Mountain of the North, marks the northern boundary of the traditional Navajo homeland.

Coleman said the agency will review notes from each meeting, identify common themes and publish a public report in July. Some changes could happen quickly, while others may require additional funding or legislation.

She said the sessions are already making a difference simply by raising awareness. Some attendees didn’t know about the new park access law until they arrived.

People who could not attend can submit comments through Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s online engagement page.