Dan Carter

Dan grew up on a small horse and hay farm in Tennessee. He has an education in civil engineering and geography which he applies to interconnected projects across the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail. Dan has been living along the Continental Divide landscape since 2008. Since then he has worked and played along the CDT as a servant to public lands, recreationist, and most recently stewarding the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). He greatly enjoys the diverse people, landscapes, and cultures that exist along the CDT, and pulling from the knowledge of many to manage and steward this landscape.

Roundtable Facilitator

The CDT landscape is more than just the 18-24″ wide trail. It is the watersheds, wildlife, people, and cultures that make this landscape so special and inspire us to travel through it on a trail. Much of the Continental Divide landscape are working lands. This landscape also has Federal public lands and State land managed for agriculture and recreation. As the human population and recreation grows along this landscape, the intersection with the working lands, practices, communities, and cultures is becoming ever more frequent. The intersection of these two uses can sometimes cause conflict. Development and privatization threatens both uses and ways of life that are deeply woven into the cultural landscape of the West. Many people that are part of recreation and working lands share a common love and connection to these lands.

These shared lands and love create great opportunities for people to work together to understand, protect, and manage these shared landscapes in a sustainable way. This roundtable is an opportunity to discuss the intersection of working lands, conservation, and recreation to lead to actions with shared benefit and understanding for all groups. Some of the specific intersectional topics encountered along the Continental Divide Trail are: livestock infrastructure: gates, fences, and water; best practices around livestock and guardian animals; differing cultures and generational change. Through our shared love for this landscape and public lands, we can find common ground and shared resources to better steward the CDT landscape.