A grant program supporting "sustainable tourism" in Montezuma County is helping to fund four county projects.

Money from the Four Corners Gateway Tourism Initiative was granted on Wednesday to support projects as sundry as planning trails in the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park, assisting the San Juan Mountains Association with a cultural-site stewardship program, helping preserve historic sites in the town of Dolores, and training welcome-center employees.

In total the Fort Lewis Office of Community Services will distribute more than $73,000 to tourism projects within Four Corners’ communities.

"Sustainable tourism is recognizing that tourism does have impacts and it’s something that’s done in consideration of both the impact on the community as well as on the resources," explained Ken Francis, director of the Office of Community Services at Fort Lewis College in Durango.

Francis said that the Gateway Initiative also recognized the impact on tourism for public-lands managers.

Some communities in the region have become overwhelmed by tourism, while others are ignored.

The Four Corners Gateway Tourism Initiative was established and jointly funded by the Office of Community Services, Forest Service-Rocky Mountain Region, San Juan National Forest, Bureau of Land Management, Park Service (Department of Interior), and Bureau of Indian Affairs. It is an effort to enhance quality of life and tourism opportunities in small communities.

The project initially centered on a survey of heritage tourism and recreation connected with rural communities and public lands in the Four Corners region of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.

It was completed early in 2000 after more than 100 key informants and opinion leaders were interviewed about their community’s desire for tourism and its capacity to meet the opportunities, as well as the pressures, of tourism.

Researchers asked community members what they thought about tourism in their towns and what they would pursue if they had money and resources.

They collected local visions about future community development, along with the willingness and capacities of communities, tourism businesses, and public-lands agencies to be partners in sustainable tourism development.

They also gathered ideas for how all three could work cooperatively to plan for tourism with conservation and stewardship approaches, improve residents’ quality of life, and diversify the local economy.

Last summer, the survey data was compiled into summaries describing various aspects of individual communities and public-lands offices.