The cultural, scenic and biological spectacle that is New Mexico spreads across 77.7 million acres. Almost 26 million of those acres are part of America's public lands. And though remote, wild places abound, only around 1.6 million acres are protected as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. The Wilderness Society and its conservation partners have identified much, much more and intend to protect it.
Early Settlement
European settlement has existed in New Mexico about as long as anywhere in the U.S. But even after centuries of such settlement and use, wildlands endure to a surprising extent in New Mexico. They've remained wild, in part, because they are remote and rugged. But, probably most significantly, they remain wild because they offered little of conventional economic value to the extractive industries that have transformed the face of much of the West.
Much to Protect
Whatever the reasons, from New Mexico's high plains grasslands to some glorious mountain peaks, there is much to treasure and much to protect. There is a wealth of Anasazi ruins, ancient petroglyphs, dinosaur tracks, rich plant and animal life and splendid opportunities for solitary, primitive recreation. Many of these occur on lands under the care of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The highest value of those lands lies in wilderness protection, which supports plants and animals, healthy watersheds, clean air. Though it is often lost in the shuffle, wilderness in a state like New Mexico supports humans, too, and supports them directly: tourism is the state's largest employer. Traveling Americans rarely make industrial oil fields and strip mines their destinations.
Strong Public Support for Wilderness
Judging by an August 2000 poll, New Mexico citizens, at least those who vote, understand the value of wilderness want more of it. The poll, commissioned by the Coalition for New Mexico Wilderness, found that 59 percent of those asked would support wilderness protection for more public lands in the state.
Citizen's Proposal
The Wilderness Society is a member of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance which has come together to save New Mexico's wildest places. Through field studies across the state, the Alliance has identified 2.5 million acres of public lands in New Mexico, including 1.6 million acres of BLM land, that must be permanently protected as wilderness.
The citizens' proposal includes eight distinct areas across the state that include deserving wilderness and demand protection: Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado Plateau, Gila River, Headwaters, El Malpais, Rio Grande Valley, Cabezon Country, Sky Islands.
Today, only about 1.6 million acres of public land in New Mexico is protected as wilderness, about 2.2 percent of the state's area, a much smaller percentage than in other western states. In Arizona, for example, 6 percent of the state is protected as wilderness; in California, it is 13 percent.
The citizens' proposal for New Mexico wilderness on BLM lands contrasts sharply with the agency's own recommendation, a common pattern across the West. Interior Secretary James Watt recommended only 761,000 acres of New Mexico BLM land for wilderness, about half the deserving wilderness citizens found.
The Wilderness Society and the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance recommend for protection some areas that were completely absent from the BLM's recommendation, and would significantly expand others to better sustain and protect ecologically fragile places.
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