Christmas Trees for Conservation  

San Juan Mountains Association is hosting its biggest fundraiser of the year with its annual Christmas Trees for Conservation event. You're watching the Local News Network brought to you by FLC Center for Innovation and Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers. I'm Sadie Smith. Through Christmas Trees for Conservation, SJMA harvests 400 trees from the San Juan National Forest to sell as Christmas trees.

It started 11 years ago. It was actually the brainchild of a couple of SJMA board members, folks who are still friends with SJMA today. There was an old tree lot where Zia's is, the new Zia's North is currently located, and they wanted to hand it over. And Ben Rockis, actually, from Backcountry Experience, had the brainchild to make this a fundraiser for SJMA's education programs, and the tree lot was born. It really evolved out of mostly volunteers making this happen.

The fundraiser offers both freshly cut local white fir and sustainably farmed balsam trees from Wisconsin. Cutting these trees acts as a critical step in wildfire prevention. SJMA partners with the San Juan National Forest to identify areas in need of thinning.

And we are working with our partners to ensure that we're going into areas that need thinning. We go in on foot, cut the trees, take 'em to a a netting area, net them, haul them down to the Durango trains parking lot, and try to minimize our impact on the landscape as best as we can.

Thinning areas of the San Juan National Forest improves forest health and supports critical conservation efforts.

We specifically cut white fir, predominantly. Every now and then, we might get a subalpine fir in there. But white firs are notorious for being what we call ladder fuels. First of all, they grow in clusters and they burn easily, and so that sends flames up, leading to what we call crown fires in the event of a wildfire.

SJMA relies heavily on the support of its volunteers to make Christmas Trees for Conservation a successful annual event.

We start about a month before the sale, and we recruit around 70 to 80 volunteers. And during that month, we choose and flag the trees out in the forest that we're going to cut, and organize all the equipment and everything we need. And on our tree cutting day, we cut around over 400 trees in one day.

You can find your perfect Christmas tree at the corner of Camino del Rio and College Avenue. The fundraiser continues until December 22nd, or until all the trees are sold, so don't wait too long. All proceeds support public land stewardship programs and conservation education. For more information about this and other stories, visit durangolocal.news. Thank you for watching this edition of the Local News Network. I'm Sadie Smith.