Congressman Joe Neguse, Public Lands Champion, Discusses a Hughes Natural Area & Hikes Maxwell Trail with the Poudre Canyon Group of the Sierra Club
What a wonderful weekend!
This past Saturday, August 23rd, members, family and friends of the Poudre Canyon Group of the Sierra Club (PCG) hosted our very own public lands champion, Congressman Joe Neguse, at the publicly-owned Hughes Open Space and the Maxwell Natural Area. PCG and Congressman Neguse discussed the importance of strong protections for our public lands, and hikers informed him about the citizen-initiated ballot measure that voters overwhelmingly approved in 2021 to protect Hughes as publicly-owned land, AND the current 2025 citizen-initiated ballot measure to further protect Hughes a 100% Natural Area, just like the adjacent Maxwell and Pineridge are protected.
Those on the hike also recounted the ongoing decade-old fight to protect and preserve Hughes, and the ways in which private special interests continue to attempt to grab the land for themselves for high-impact, land-consuming uses, even though Hughes is now in the public trust.
When one PCG member asked whether anyone present could tell whether there was a significant delineation or distinction between the Hughes land and Maxwell Natural Area, nobody could. Maxwell and Hughes are continuous. The point was clear that Hughes should be protected like the contiguous Maxwell and Pineridge Natural Areas are protected to extend and buffer our wildlife corridor and ecologically important ecotone.
Congressman Neguse stated that in any other local Colorado community, the Hughes land would already be protected.
Thank you for hosting Congressman Neguse, Sierra Club Poudre Canyon Group. And thank you, as always, for the crucial environmental work you do locally, and for your support of a Hughes Natural Area for ALL members of our community and for our local wildlife returning to the land.
