Masters of the Environment

Students learning dam good lessons from nature's busy builders

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 13:54:40 +0000

Students learning dam good lessons from nature's busy builders Rachel Sauer Fri, 10/31/2025 - 07:54

Rachel Sauer

In a capstone project partnership with the Boulder Watershed Collective, Masters of the Environment students study what it means to live alongside beavers

Beavers are so much more than nature’s most eager builders. In many ecosystems, they play a key role in nature-based solutions to flood control, habitat restoration and fire mitigation.

They are a keystone species that can increase biodiversity in suitable habitats, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), but they also are a source of human-wildlife conflict in Colorado. For example, beavers have been known to build dams and inadvertently flood areas that ranchers or homeowners don’t want flooded.

Jack Carter, Amanda Opp and Colin McDonald (left to right) completed a Masters of the Environment capstone project studying beavers and how they live alongside humans in partnership with the Boulder Watershed Collective. (Photo: Masters of the Environment program)

The question for conservationists, land managers and any human who cares about wildlife, then, is how to live alongside this native species that broadly engenders mixed feelings. It’s a question that University of Colorado Boulder Masters of the Environment (MENV) students Amanda Opp, Jack Carter and Colin McDonald addressed in their capstone project, which they will publicly present today at the 2025 MENV Capstone Symposium.

Partnering with the Boulder Watershed Collective (BWC), Opp, Carter and McDonald examined the social perceptions and ecological impacts of beavers via surveys, research and data collection. They talked with land and wildlife managers across the Front Range to study how public agencies make beaver management decisions, and they participated in two beaver reintroductions, developing a monitoring plan to measure ecological metrics at the sites where the beavers were reintroduced.

“I think we all read the book ‘Eager’ by Ben Goldfarb, about beavers in America and how there was a high reduction in numbers from trapping in the 19^th century,” Carter explains. “Now there’s a movement to reintroduce them, and we have this thing about ‘coexistence’ as one of those kind of trigger words. We tried to come up with multiple things like ‘living with beavers’ in place of ‘coexistence’ or ‘reintroduction,’ which somehow give off the vibe that your life is going to change by the presence of these animals coming back, which isn’t necessarily the case.”

Back from the brink

Not too long ago, the North American beaver was on the verge of extinction because of 19th-century fashions that required the under fur of beaver pelts. At their population peak before the fur trade began in earnest, there were anywhere between 60-400 million North American beavers, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), but by 1900 there were fewer than 100,000.

As beaver populations began to rebound in subsequent decades thanks to conservation and reintroduction efforts, another issue emerged: Humans had moved into beaver habitat, converting “wildlife-rich wetlands into agricultural lands” and building towns nearby, according to USFWS.

For many years along the Front Range, beavers and humans have lived in an uneasy and sometimes nonexistent détente, so one of the goals of the students’ capstone project was to gather data that might help inform CPW’s beaver conservation and management strategy, which is currently being developed.

Some of the points of conflict that Opp, Carter and McDonald learned about as they collected data included ranchers concerned about losing rangeland to flooding and homeowners who were “very concerned about mosquitoes and thinking that if beavers are creating marshy areas, the risk for West Nile increases,” Opp says.

One of the beaver releases on private land near Nederland in which Amanda Opp, Jack Carter and Colin McDonald participated for their MENV capstone project. (Video: Colin McDonald)

Working with the Boulder Watershed Collective, they learned the nuances of effective conservation, which must include education, collaboration and partnership between stakeholders, Carter says: “Due to conflicts over public infrastructure and Colorado water law, reintroducing beavers is not as easy as it may seem.”

“I think BWC, and a lot of people involved with conservation, when they’re conveying the message of ‘Hey, these are beneficial animals,’ they have to meet people where they’re at,” Opp says. “One of biggest concerns in Colorado is fire mitigation, so when we’re thinking about unique solutions, nature-based solutions that might not have been considered in the past, beavers have been a really important pitch: ‘If you have a wet environment with wet soil and healthy grass, you’ll probably have reduced risk of fire reaching your property.’”

At the beginning of the 20th century, the North American beaver was on the verge of extinction because of 19th-century fashions that required the under fur of beaver pelts. (Photo: Amanda Opp)

Not just a cute animal

The two reintroductions in which Opp, Carter and McDonald participated happened on private land near Nederland, with the landowners inviting BWC to release beavers in ponds or wetlands on their land. Several of the reintroduced beavers came from Aurora, where they had been causing problems, McDonald says, so BWC and Aurora wildlife officers worked together to ensure that the beavers were trapped in families so they could be released together.

“Beavers aren’t endangered anymore, so there’s zero protection for them,” Carter explains, adding that the areas in which the beavers were released are far from settlements, hopefully giving the beavers the greatest chance to thrive.

At one of the relocation sites, the beavers had monitors attached to their tails, enabling researchers and wildlife officials to track their movements, Opp says. And at both locations, the landowners are reporting their visual observations of beaver movement to BWC, which is included in the MENV students’ monitoring plan. Their plan also includes measuring how wide the bodies of water into which the beavers were released become.

For the students, each of whom came to the MENV program as committed conservationists, their work with beavers for their capstone project was about more than busy, charismatic rodents.

“I’m really passionate about conservation and passionate about protecting animals in the wild, and this project instilled in me how rewarding this work is,” Opp says, a sentiment that McDonald echoed, adding that he appreciated learning how to build community partnerships and how to maximize impact at small nonprofits.

“Before this, I don’t think I really appreciated beavers,” Carter says. “I didn’t realize how important they are to an ecosystem. One of the biggest things that’s happening right now is biodiversity loss, and beavers create essential habitats for moose, for certain amphibian species. A lot of amphibians are going down the drain, especially in a state like Colorado, and beavers can help solve that problem.”

“The best way to move forward with all the damage humans have done is to realize we’re not separate from our environment,” Opp says. “We have to do everything we can to protect it, and beavers are a really awesome keystone species that’s not just this cute animal; they can play an important role in solving the climate crisis.”

Jack Carter, Colin McDonald and Amanda Opp (left to right) on their way to release a beaver on private land near Nederland. (Photo: Amanda Opp)

A beaver after being released on private land near Nederland. (Photo: Amanda Opp)

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about environmental studies? Show your support.

In a capstone project partnership with the Boulder Watershed Collective, Masters of the Environment students study what it means to live alongside beavers.

Traditional

White

Top photo: Amanda Opp

Scaling stream restoration across Colorado

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 19:36:49 +0000

Scaling stream restoration across Colorado Rachel Sauer Thu, 10/16/2025 - 13:36

Leah Bilski

How a unique partnership is mapping the future of riverscape restoration in the state

Colorado’s streams face mounting pressures from climate change, development, and over a century of historical degradation. While the recent passing of Senate Bill 23-270 (SB23-270) allows six categories of minor stream restoration activities to move forward exempted from water rights administration, practitioners across the state still face challenges when getting projects off the ground.

The missing piece? A comprehensive understanding of Colorado’s “restoration landscape” – who’s doing what, where, and what barriers stand in their way. This has prompted an innovative partnership between Audubon Rockies, Water for Colorado and University of Colorado Boulder students to map Colorado’s restoration landscape and identify opportunities for scaling impacts for functioning and healthy riverscapes. This work builds on Audubon’s commitment to shaping Colorado’s water future for people, birds and the habitats that we all depend on.

Leah Bilski is a graduate student in the interdisciplinary ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Masters of the Environment Graduate Program. (Photo: Leah Bilski)

A proven solution is gaining ground

Process-Based Restoration (PBR) offers a spectrum of cost-effective approaches for addressing climate and drought resilience for healthy riverscapes while furthering Colorado’s Water Plan objectives. From simple, hand-built structures using natural materials to more sophisticated engineering solutions, these techniques focus on addressing stressors and boosting natural stream processes that allow rivers to heal themselves. The passage of SB-270 created unprecedented opportunities for implementing Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration (LTPBR) across Colorado by providing legal clarity for six categories of minor stream restoration activities.

Despite these advances, critical questions remained unanswered:

Which stakeholders are leading restoration efforts, and where?
What motivates organizations to pursue stream restoration projects?
Most importantly, what barriers prevent or slow down implementation, and how has SB-270 influenced restoration practices on the ground?

CU Masters of the Environment: the perfect partner

Enter ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Master’s of the Environment (MENV) program. Each year, MENV students are paired with organizations addressing pressing issues in the fields of environmental policy, renewable energy, and sustainability. The students work as student consultants while simultaneously completing their master’s capstone project. The program’s focus on practical, need-driven solutions makes it an ideal partner for Audubon’s efforts to elevate stream restoration in Colorado.

Three dedicated students—Pearl McLeod, Josie Rivero and Leah Bilski—have brought fresh perspectives and social science expertise to complement Audubon Rockies’s experience as a leader in policy and project implementation for stream restoration. This collaborative approach ensures that research directly serves the needs of the restoration community while building the next generation of conservation and stream restoration professionals.

By combining Audubon’s on-the-ground experience with the students’ in-depth analysis, the partnership can reach across Colorado’s eight major water basins to engage everyone from NGOs and federal agencies to private consultants and watershed groups.

Mapping Colorado’s stream restoration efforts

The project’s primary objective is ambitious yet essential: create a comprehensive map of LTPBR projects across Colorado to identify gaps in geographic coverage and stakeholder engagement. This foundation will inform where resources and support are most needed to scale effective restoration approaches statewide.

Phase one involved launching a statewide survey to capture the broad restoration work happening across the state, while phase two will focus on in-depth case studies to understand how successful projects overcome barriers. The collaborative approach ensures findings focus on learning from both challenges and successes.

An innovative partnership between Audubon Rockies, Water for Colorado and University of Colorado Boulder students maps Colorado’s restoration landscape and identifies opportunities for scaling impacts for functioning and healthy riverscapes. (Photo: Attie Heunis/Pexels)

Early success: education efforts are paying off

Initial results reveal encouraging trends and some surprising insights. Audubon’s educational efforts regarding SB-270 have been largely successful across many regions of Colorado, with 38% of survey respondents reporting that SB-270 has benefited their stream restoration projects, while only 4% report it as a barrier.

The data shows that hydrology is the primary motivation driving most restoration projects, followed closely by wildfire recovery efforts, reflecting Colorado’s recent fire impacts and ongoing drought concerns. Restoration work is happening across all of Colorado’s major river basins, though with varying intensity, and projects consistently involve multi-partner teams applying diverse techniques to meet multiple goals simultaneously.

However, significant barriers persist, despite SB-270’s passage. Permitting challenges remain the top concern, followed by limited funding and agency coordination issues. These findings suggest that while legal clarity has improved, practitioners still need support navigating implementation processes and securing adequate resources.

The restoration community has demonstrated strong engagement and willingness to participate in research that could benefit their work. Practitioners are actively sharing knowledge and experiences, building a foundation for a deeper understanding of Colorado’s restoration landscape.

Looking ahead: supporting Colorado’s restoration community

This research will help address specific needs identified by practitioners, such as connecting isolated restoration workers with peer networks, creating guidance for navigating restoration implementation, and identifying which regions need additional technical support or funding. By identifying non-policy barriers, such as limited technician capacity and technical implementation concerns, that limit restoration work, Audubon and partners support stream restoration stakeholders in better addressing their challenges, shifting social perceptions, and ultimately restoring healthy stream habitat throughout the state. The findings can also inform potential sound policy moving forward, ensuring that future legislation builds on SB-270's success.

Through continued partnership, community engagement and support, and innovative restoration techniques, we’re working to revive Colorado’s streams for generations of birds, wildlife, and people who depend on them.

Join the effort

We are continuing to capture important data about restoration projects throughout Colorado and challenges faced through our survey. Participation helps build a complete picture of Colorado’s restoration landscape and ensures that findings reflect the full diversity of approaches and challenges across our state. Share your restoration experience through our survey (open until midnight on October 12th, 2025) and help us identify exactly what Colorado’s restoration community needs to succeed.

Leah Bilski is pursuing a master's in environmental and natural resource policy in the Masters of the Environment Graduate Program.

Essay reproduced with permission from Audubon Rockies. Read the original here.

How a unique partnership is mapping the future of riverscape restoration in the state.

Traditional

White

Top photo: Tricia Pionzio/Audubon Photography Awards

The world’s food system is broken—this group wants to help fix it

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 14:00:00 +0000

The world’s food system is broken—this group wants to help fix it Rachel Sauer Wed, 12/04/2024 - 07:00

Sarah Kuta

With FrontLine Farming, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� scholars and community colleagues focus on food security, food justice and food liberation

Many global experts agree: The world’s food system is broken.

Millions of people around the world go hungry each year, while millions more suffer from preventable, diet-related health issues like obesity and heart disease. Food insecurity—which disproportionately affects people of color—perpetuates cycles of poverty and makes it difficult for already-struggling families to get ahead. Commercial agriculture practices harm the environment, and food waste is a major source of global greenhouse gas emissions. Farmworkers face unfair and unsafe working conditions while also earning very low wages. The list goes on.

Damien Thompson, an assistant teaching professor in the Masters of the Environment (MENV) program, co-founded FrontLine Farming with MENV colleague and lecturer Fatuma Emmaud.

On a global scale, finding and implementing solutions to these problems will require international cooperation among policymakers, researchers and everyday citizens. But here, on Colorado’s Front Range, a nonprofit with ties to ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� is working to improve the local food system, one bite at a time.

Founded in 2018, FrontLine Farming is a nonprofit food justice and farmer-advocacy organization that aims to build a more equitable food system through community-derived, data-driven and asset-based solutions. Led by women and people of color, the group is also reclaiming the narrative and elevating historically oppressed voices.

The organization was co-founded by Damien Thompson, a Sustainable Food Systems specialization lead as well as an assistant teaching professor for the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Masters of the Environment (MENV) graduate program, and Fatuma Emmad, an MENV lecturer and Sustainable Food Systems career advisor.

Working alongside FrontLine Farming volunteers and staff, Thompson and Emmad are striving to improve the region’s food system through farming, education, policy changes and many other initiatives.

Food access and education

FrontLine Farming is trying to improve the Front Range’s food system from the ground up—literally. The group runs three urban farms—Sister Gardens and Celebration Community Farm in Denver and Majestic View Farm in Arvada—where it grows thousands of pounds of vegetables each year.

Much of that produce is distributed through community-supported agriculture shares, or CSAs. Participants pay upfront, then receive weekly distributions of vegetables between July and October.

Many CSA members pay full price, but FrontLine Farming provides a small number of free CSA boxes to families in need of additional support. The organization also accepts Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits as payment for CSA shares and, thanks to the Double Up Food Bucks program, gives a 50% discount to SNAP customers.

FrontLine Farming also donates up to a third of its annual harvest to a network of partner organizations through its Healing Foods program. These partners include organizations like Project Angel Heart, a nonprofit that prepares and delivers meals to Coloradans with severe illnesses.

FrontLine Farming runs three urban farms—Sister Gardens and Celebration Community Farm in Denver and Majestic View Farm in Arvada—where it grows thousands of pounds of vegetables each year. (Photo: FrontLine Farming)

“We’re trying to provide access to healthy food in the places where folks are already accessing services,” says Thompson.

In partnership with Denver Food Rescue, the group also hosts regular No Cost Grocery events at its farms. Shoppers can get free groceries and specialty items rescued from Whole Foods and Sprouts stores in Denver, without needing to show identification or documentation. These events not only increase food access but also help reduce the stigma around food insecurity.

FrontLine Farming offers an array of educational programs, including classes on topics ranging from herbalism and beekeeping to insect identification and seed-saving. It also runs a two-week farm immersion program to support aspiring Black, Brown and Indigenous farmers and gardeners.

“All of our education is rooted in this idea of sovereignty,” says Thompson. “Folks need information, they need knowledge in order to be able to start to participate in the food system in more meaningful ways.”

Achieving food sovereignty

Improving working conditions for farm laborers is another major priority for FrontLine Farming. In 2021, the group was part of a coalition that helped pass the state’s first farmworkers’ bill of rights, a law meant to protect the more than 40,000 farm laborers in Colorado, many of whom are migrants from Central America and Mexico.

How you can help

Overhauling the food system may seem daunting. But as FrontLine Farming demonstrates every day, small actions can have a big effect. Here are three steps you can take.

Plant a garden: One of the easiest ways to get involved? Grow your own food. “Become a community gardener, really into understanding the nature of the work that it takes to produce even a small amount of food,” says Thompson.

Join a CSA: If you don’t have time to grow veggies—or you worry you just don’t have a green thumb—consider buying a community supported agriculture (CSA) share from a farm near you, says Thompson. Also, spend some time learning about the farm’s values—how do they treat their labor? Do they follow organic practices? “Getting involved with a CSA and directly financing a farm contributes to the stability of local farms,” he adds.

Volunteer at a farm: FrontLine Farming relies on volunteers at its three farm locations—but they’re not the only organization you can support. Show up, get dirty and give your time and energy to your local farm. And if volunteering is not an option for you, consider joining your city’s sustainable food policy council or donating to organizations that support local agriculture.

FrontLine Farming also worked on the City and County of Denver’s Good Food Purchasing Program, which encourages major institutions to buy foods that are local, sustainable, fair and humanely produced.

“For us, food justice is policy work,” says Thompson. “How do we work within the system to try to change the system as it is currently constituted?”

With these and other programs, FrontLine Farming is working toward its goal of achieving food sovereignty, or the right for individuals to define and implement their own food and agriculture systems. Food sovereignty also encompasses the right to food that is both healthful and culturally appropriate, as well as produced sustainably.

“That’s where we want to be moving forward,” says Thompson.

Land ownership key to equity

Zooming out, all of FrontLine Farming’s work is informed by the team’s identities as women and people of color. Historically, Black, Brown and Indigenous farmers have faced myriad barriers to land ownership, resources and technical assistance.

“It’s been outright racism in terms of access to resources like banking and financing,” says Thompson. “Back in the day, it was racialized terror. Black farmers were literally terrorized and run off their land, potentially even lynched, depending on the circumstances.”

Farmers of color continue to face many of these same hurdles today. FrontLine Farming wants to help remove those obstacles while also amplifying the agricultural wisdom and skills of Africans, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, refugees and other communities.

FrontLine Farming also recognizes that land ownership—particularly among people of color—is crucial for resilience and equity. The organization recently celebrated a major milestone when it acquired the land on which Sister Gardens sits in Denver’s Chaffee Park neighborhood, but continues to raise money to buy more property through its Liberation by Land reparations campaign.

“The fact that we own Sister Gardens now—that’s land no one can take from us,” says Thompson. “That’s really important and really meaningful, ultimately, for the idea of sovereignty, especially for Black folks.”

Understanding the food system

Looking ahead, FrontLine Farming will continue to push for changes to the food system. Much of that work comes down to raising awareness about how that system is inextricably intertwined with labor, immigration, climate change, human health, policy and other topics.

“There are all of these different experiences that folks have in their everyday lives that are actually related to the food system,” says Thompson. “And it’s important to start to understand that. Not so we can scold farmers or turn producers into the bad guys, but so that we can understand that changes in the food system really do have so many knock-on effects.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about the Masters of the Environment graduate program? Show your support.

With FrontLine Farming, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� scholars and community colleagues focus on food security, food justice and food liberation.

Traditional

White

Top photo: FrontLine Farming

Masters of the Environment

Students learning dam good lessons from nature's busy builders

Related Articles

Scaling stream restoration across Colorado

Related Articles

The world’s food system is broken—this group wants to help fix it

Related Articles