COMMUNITY
LIVING GREEN, LIKE A LOCAL Initiative highlights environmental and wildlife-friendly measures BY ERIN SPILLANE
D
Tony Demin
id you know that in Telluride and Mountain Village you can’t let your car idle for more than 30 seconds? That you are required to secure your outdoor trash cans sufficiently to prevent bear break-ins? And that dog-owners must pick up their dog’s poop or face a fine? Yep, all are local ordinances. Now, thanks to a collaboration between the Town of Telluride Ecology Commission, the Town of Mountain Village’s Green Team, San Miguel County and the Telluride Tourism Board, there is a new initiative that aims to raise awareness of and promote compliance with these environmentand wildlife-friendly measures. Titled Live Like a Local, the initiative also advocates a number of cherished local customs, like eschewing single-use plastic bottles for reusable ones (filled with pure, delicious tap water), robust recycling, leave no trace on trails and conscientious water conservation. The campaign relies on a series of well-designed, colorful icons, each with a friendly, but important, message aimed at education and encouraging compliance. ‘THE MAIN GOAL IS FOR Jonathan Greenspan, who is a member of both COMMUNITY MEMBERS the Ecology Commission and the Green Team, AND VISITORS TO SEE points out that these ordinances and practices THIS MESSAGING AS A are a reflection of the community’s priorities. CONSISTENT AND COHESIVE “It’s the one commonality — the beauty of this place, plain and simple. It’s what brought us all WHOLE, AND TO CHANGE here. Protecting that with [Live Like a Local] BEHAVIORS.’ reflects the values of our community, the culture Kie r ste n T albert we want to promote and the behaviors we want to encourage.” While these green practices — and programs to promote them — have been around for a while, Greenspan notes, Live Like a Local represents a fresh, coordinated approach with buy-in from the area’s environmental groups and support from the tourism board, as well as the poster-, sticker- and social media-friendly icons, use of QR codes and follow-up to measure outcomes. Says Ecology Commission chair Kiersten Talbert, “Our intention with this campaign is to streamline and synthesize our messaging. The main goal is for community members and visitors to see this messaging as a consistent and cohesive whole, and to change behaviors.” Education is a priority too. Ecology Commission member Kathy Green, for instance, highlights the ordinance relating to trash cans and dumpsters. Many don’t realize it, but carelessness with trash means danger for bears. The bears get used to eating human food and consequently turn up their noses at foraging for their usual natural foodstuffs. This in turn can cause them to lose their wariness of people, with unhappy potential for property damage and human encounters that >> telluride.com | 855.421.4360
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