Public Lands

By Eliza Kretzmann
New Mexico Wild America coordinator

Washington, DC — On March 25, President Obama designated the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. Located in Northern New Mexico near Taos, the monument area is about 242,000 acres and is home to vast mesas and an abundance of wildlife and recreation opportunities.

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By Laurence Gibson, El Paso Group chair

What follows is the story of the El Paso Group’s fight to contain sprawl in Northwest El Paso, sprawl that will severely impact our magnificent Franklin Mountains State Park and destroy our last remaining greenway, turning it into a superhighway with freeway interchanges. This was an exhausting fight, straining both the physical, emotional and financial resources of our group. It may be too early to assess the lessons we learned. However, some conclusions seem obvious.

By Walter Szymanski, Rio Grande Chapter member

At the invitation of New Mexico’s Southwestern County Commission Alliance (SWCCA) and the Council of Border Conservation Districts, a fast-talking lawyer and Republican state representative from Utah named Ken Ivory made a presentation to about 60 attendees at a meeting in Deming on Dec. 3, 2012, urging them to follow his state’s lead and push for legislation in New Mexico to “take back” national public lands.

Sierra Club Mission Outdoors - The Organ Mountains Campout
by Liz Walsh

As you know the Sierra Club’s mission is to explore, enjoy and protect the planet. Through our four Mission Outdoors programs, we are expanding the conservation movement by providing access to outdoor experiences for more people, organizing grassroots and administrative support for the value of outdoor experiences, and building alliances and partnerships that involve diverse communities in protecting their natural heritage. Part of this initiative focuses on engaging military families and veterans.

By Eliza Kretzmann Resilient Habitats organizer

By Roger Singer, Senior Organizing Manager, Western Region

New Mexico is known as The Land of Enchantment, both for our richly diverse culture and for our richly diverse landscapes, from Otero Mesa to Rio Grande del Norte, from Bandelier to the Organ Mountains and the San Juan Badlands. This mixture of people and places is why so many people want to call New Mexico home, so let’s work together to protect our valued home.

New Mexico’s Otero Mesa is the largest and wildest Chihuahuan Desert grassland left on public lands in America. The area is located southeast of Alamogordo, west of Carlsbad and straddles the Texas border.