WildEarth Guardians

Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Valles Caldera Trust Rejects $25,000 Offer to Put People on the Preserve Instead of Cows

The Valles Caldera accepted a 2007 grazing bid earlier this week that will generate an estimated $6,000 in total revenue
Contact: WildEarth Guardians

Santa Fe, NM - Earlier this week, the Valles Caldera Trust turned down an offer from a local environmental group to bank $25,000 in revenue, and took $6,000 from a rancher instead. By law, the Valles Caldera National Preserve was established to protect and preserve the area's scientific, scenic, geologic, watershed, fish, wildlife, historic, cultural, and recreational values. The Valles Caldera Trust was created to carry out the Preserve's mission and to turn a profit. The Santa-Fe based environmental group, WildEarth Guardians, recently offered the Trust a $25,000 lump sum payment so that it could do just that: make money while protecting the Preserve. The Trust said no.

WildEarth Guardians offered the donation if the Trust would commit to opening up the Preserve to people instead of cows. Historically, the Valles Caldera has been grazed by livestock, and was largely inaccessible to the public. Since the Caldera was acquired by the federal government in 2000, not much has changed. Although many people want better access to the Preserve for recreation, the Trust is dedicated to running the Preserve as a working ranch.

The Trust recently accepted proposals from ranchers to graze the Preserve later this year, but refused to consider a bid by WildEarth Guardians to devote the Preserve to other purposes, such as restoration, education, recreation, and eco-tourism. "Of course we want the Trust to protect the Valles Caldera," says Melissa Hailey, WildEarth Guardians' Grazing Reform Program Attorney. "But we also want the Trust to gain financial independence by 2015. We just don't see how continuing to graze cattle will accomplish either of these goals."

In letters written to the Trust last December and earlier this month, WildEarth Guardians shared its vision for the Preserve as "a place of wonderment and hands-on educational opportunity, capable of attracting visitors from around the world." The group asked the Trust to expand it's request for grazing proposals to include bids for total non-use, lower stocking rates, and/or alternative, less damaging, types of livestock. Along with the $25,000 for total non-use, the Trust denied all of WildEarth Guardians' requests to make the "working ranch" concept a bit more flexible.

"We understand that the Trust feels constrained by some people's desire to graze," says Hailey. "But the Trust is allowed to graze the Valles Caldera only so long as they can still fulfill the purposes for which the Preserve was created. Many non-ranching families have waited a lifetime to travel onto the Preserve to learn and recreate. Cattle ranching is neither the preferable use of the Valles Caldera nor the fiscal solution for the Trust."

In 2003, the National Parks Service took in just under $4.5 million in annual revenues, largely contributed by campers. The Valles Caldera accepted a 2007 grazing bid earlier this week. That bid will generate an estimated $6,000 in total revenue: $19,000 less than that offered by WildEarth Guardians and probably considerably less than that which could be generated from recreation.

WildEarth Guardians protects and restores the native wildlife and wildlands of the American Southwest. The group seeks to be a proactive voice in the administration of our National Parks, and argues that the continued presence of livestock on public lands is fundamentally incompatible with restoring the balance of nature on many ecologically sensitive public lands in the southwest.

For more information, including the Valles Caldera Trust's letter of denial to WildEarth Guardians, contact Melissa Hailey, Esq. at mhailey@fguardians.org or 505-988-9126 x159.