Conservation wave builds in the West

Craning his neck to see over the small airplane's instrument panel, Ron Gardiner points out the path Spanish explorers had to take around the deep crevasse that cuts through the center of northern New Mexico. To the west of the famous Rio Grande gorge and its towering basalt cliffs is a broad plateau of sagebrush, native grass and remnants of the ancient volcanoes that helped form this rugged landscape. Herds of elk, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and golden eagles call it home. "This is one of the last undeveloped tracts in the Southwest," said Gardiner, a water policy consultant who is among those who have been spearheading the decades-old effort to protect the area. The push to set aside nearly 370 square miles as the El Rio Grande del Norte National Conservation Area is part of a new wave of congressional proposals aimed at protecting more than 34 million acres of public land across the West...AP