Proposed NCA for the Peloncillo Region: Trying to Preserve Wild Land

From: Keeler Ranch
Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 7:08 PM
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Subject: Proposed NCA for the Peloncillo Region: Trying to Preserve Wild Land

Every once in awhile it's good to reach back into the past and pull up some information that may have previously slipped by unnoticed. So here's an article - originally published in the Albuquerque Journal in June of 1997 - that needs to be repeated. Unfortunately, the article can not found on the web, it was written before such items got posted to the internet. I still have the original article if you care to view it!!

The newly proposed National Conservation Area (NCA) for the Peloncillo Mountains has its roots in this article. I was sending this information to a gentleman I met yesterday and thought I'd better pass it along for your review too. Perhaps it will lend some understanding as to what is being planned for our area.

Please note the Wildlands Project, as stated in this article, calls for using conservation biology.... "The idea is to design natural areas for the benefit of animals requiring the most space -- bears, wolves, bison and jaguars, for example." Conservation biologists call these "umbrella species." The theory on which the Wildlands Project is based claims that protecting these species will result "automatically in protection for other plant and animal species."

The Wildlands Project, as published in 1992, calls for "wilderness areas" to become the "core areas" - home to "unfettered life, free from industrial human intervention .... Vast landscapes without roads, dams, motorized vehicles, powerlines, overflights, or other artifacts of civilization" that must be designed to "save biodiversity." Although the land-use restrictions in the buffer zones and corridors "would be less restrictive than in the core areas", the plan does call for these areas to be managed by federal agencies to protect their "wilderness qualities". Within the preserve design would be "wilderness core areas", with "buffer zones around those cores and corridors connecting the core areas".

The Wildlands Project is based on the concept that large preserves such as "the "Greater Gila Sky Islands" are needed to protect large "umbrella species". Initially, it was planned to "encompass 40,000 square miles, roughly half of which would be in Mexico". Just a few years later the preserve design had grown to "70,000 acres". It's anybody's guess how many acres it has morphed into today.

The Wildlands Project, as acknowledged in this article, is a "theory" folks - an experiment that will be performed on us, the local landowners!!

I've attached the map for the proposed "Peloncillo Coordinated Management and Protected Area Planning Boundary". It came with the "Executive Summary" for the NCA. If you'd like to read the executive summary, drop David Hodges, Sky Island Alliance, a note: dhodges@skyislandalliance.org

Feel free to pass this along!! I believe everyone who will be impacted by this agenda should get a heads up on what the Sky Island/Nature Conservancy is proposing for our area. Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, all the NCA will do is take away the private property rights of the people living within its boundaries. Everyone needs to know what is being planned for their property.

Why do I include the Nature Conservancy? In my opinion, they are inextricably involved in this planning process. Other areas all over our nation are already being impacted by this HUGE agenda.

Do your homework. If you would like to read what a NCA did for landowners in California - please read this article:
http://www.rangemagazine.com/archives/stories/fall99/strange_equality.htm
Maybe it's time for a congressional investigation into how the Wildlands Project is being used to determine land-use planning in the New Mexico and Arizona, as well as the other states in our nation.

Judy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Albuquerque Journal

June 15, 1997

TRYING TO PRESERVE WILD LAND
Mike Taugher Journal Staff Writer

WILD NEW MEXICO: A Delicate Balance

* Conservationists and biologists are working together on a plan to design vast nature reserves

Think of those most lightly touched of western lands -- the national parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas -- as islands in a sea of civilization.

To a growing number of conservationists and biologists, that's exactly what they are.

And in the field of conservation biology, where scientists agree that steps must be taken to preserve biodiversity, the view is that those islands are not only necessary but may have to be expanded for the survival of numerous plant and animal species.

Conservationists and biologists are working together on a plan to design vast nature reserves around these protected islands.

The Wildlands Project is highly ambitious, if not radical, because it would remap chunks of North America from a conservation biologist's point of view. Today, it has a small paid staff based in Tucson and a budget of about $500,000, mostly from grants and some individual donations.

Co-founded by Dave Foreman, an Albuquerque resident who in 1980 co-founded the radical environmental group Earth First!, the Wildlands Project shows how over the last few decades wilderness advocates have shifted some of their emphasis on wilderness as a place for scenery and recreation to wilderness as a place for preservation of plant and animal species.

"A lot of this stuff, it's always been there. It's just that as we become more and more aware of the extinction crisis going on and the importance of wilderness in preserving that, the ecological values became more and more emphasized," said Foreman, who has long since disassociated himself from Earth First! because "they turned into a bunch of left-wing, counter-culture radicals."

In the 1960s and 1970s, wilderness advocates concentrated on high mountain areas that were typically pretty, attractive to users of the outdoors and where wilderness designation was not too objectionable to commercial interests, Foreman said.

The result was that wilderness areas were designated in scenic, high-altitude areas that were beautiful but not necessarily rich in trees, minerals or grazing land.

"We've done a really good job of protecting alpine tundra but we've done a really poor job of protecting riparian areas. Most of that is due to a recreational bias. Part of it is entirely a practical matter. There hasn't been a lot of conflict over alpine tundra, but there has been a lot of conflict over riparian areas," Foreman said.

One of the Wildlands Project's first proposals would be in southwestern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona and northern Mexico.

In its preliminary form, the "Greater Gila Sky Islands" reserve would encompass 40,000 square miles, roughly half of which would be in Mexico. Within that area would be wilderness core areas, buffer zones around those cores and corridors connecting the core areas. Land-use restrictions in the buffer zones would be less restrictive than in the core areas.

The organization for the most part is keeping its cards close to the vest, but it plans to release detailed maps for the Greater Gila Sky Islands project in about a year.

"This is going to be a very political thing in the future," said Jack Humphrey, program coordinator for the Sky Islands Alliance, an organization formed to design the biological reserve.

"This is the most ambitious thing the conservation movement has ever thought about, and it's in its infancy still," he added. "If it takes 200 years, it takes 200 years. This land isn't going anywhere."

Humphrey pointed to the bison that were shot after they migrated out of Yellowstone National Park as an example of the need for such designs. Many of those bison were shot because of ranchers' fears that they might bring disease to their cattle. The Wildlands Project's cores, buffers and corridors would take into account the space bison need.

The idea is to design natural areas for the benefit of animals requiring the most space -- bears, wolves, bison and jaguars, for example. Conservation biologists call those "umbrella species." The theory on which the Wildlands Project is based says that protecting those species will result automatically in protection for other plant and animal species.

The theory is that if animals at the top of the food chain are protected, the lower species also should flourish. That theory, Foreman and Humphrey said, never has been tested.

Once the maps are completed, wildlands supporters would try to implement the plan by purchasing private land or conservation easements on private land, by influencing planning processes for public lands and through congressional action, for example.

"In some cases it's going to be just a tweaking of a management plan. In other areas, it's going to take wilderness designation," Humphrey said.

As proof that the Wildlands Project may not be as pie-in-the-sky as it seems, supporters point to an effort in Florida to protect about half of that state's land for wildlife. The state Legislature there appropriated $3 billion for the effort, according to Wildlands Project supporters.

Supporters say they may have an advantage in western states that doesn't exist in Florida: There is a lot more public land out here.