[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYZ8ROD44IE align:center]
Jeremy Gingerich is the ranch manager of Banded Peak Ranch in Colorado and a 2012 PERC Enviropreneur Institute alum. We sat down with Jeremy last year to discuss his experience at the Enviropreneur Institute and find out how creative conservation strategies are protecting open landscapes in the west. Watch the video above, or see the Q&A below to meet Jeremy. Applications for PERC’s 2013 Enviropreneur Institute are due March 18th. Find out more here.
Q: As the manager of the Banded Peak Ranch, what are some of your goals?
A: My goal is to protect the conservation values of the ranch, while seeking ways to capture those values and market them to people and organization that value them. Currently, the ways to do that have been with timber, hunting, and limited livestock grazing.
Q: Why does the ranch focus on conservation rather than cattle and grazing operations?
A: The nature of the ranch terrain, which is steep, high elevation, and largely forested, makes the ranch less suited for livestock grazing and more suitable for other values such as fish and wildlife, forest products, environmental services, and other conservation-oriented enterprises.
Q: How do you plan to identify and market more of the environmental goods and services that the ranch provides?
A: Once I get my feet on the ground and get to know the players in the area and in the environmental services market, I plan to look for needs in the local region that the ranch can fill. We have been meeting about a timber cooperative that may be able to harvest un-merchantable timber for biomass or biochar. If these types of activities can be combined with more goods and services, such as increased water yield, the compounding benefits become really attractive. Networking with former Enviropreneur Institute fellows and PERC staff will help us further investigate the value and feasibility of marketing environmental goods and services on the ranch.