WildEarth Guardians

Thursday, December 15, 2011
Wildearth Guardians Bid $35,000 to Graze Zero Cows on Valles Caldera National Preserve

Group says in the aftermath of the Las Conchas Fire its plan is best for environment and government budgets.
Contact: Bryan Bird (505) 988-9126 x1157

Jemez Springs, NM – In the aftermath of the largest fire in the state’s recent history, WildEarth Guardians submitted its bid for a livestock operation on the Valles Caldera National Preserve that would graze no cows. The conservation group bid $35,000 to keep the Preserve free of livestock. The focus of the bid is recovery and restoration of the Preserve’s critical habitats after the Las Conchas fire burned through the National Preserve. WildEarth Guardians has made considerable efforts over the past decade to restore the Preserve’s streamside forests and wildlife habitat and believes the fire’s effects will be beneficial but only with rest from livestock grazing.

“Water and wildlife are the highest values the Preserve can offer and we want to protect those priceless resources for all New Mexicans. We’re willing to pay for that.” Said Bryan Bird, WildEarth Guardians Wild Places Program Director. “ This is the best deal taxpayers can ask for.”

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 WildEarth Guardians’ bid could do just that: make money while protecting the Preserve. Guardians believes that the best return on the dollar for the federal government and taxpayers is to accept the $35,000 in return for the privilege to keep cows out of the area and return the streamside habitats to their verdant nature. The group offers its expertise in river restoration to the Preserve in addition to the money.

According to nearly all the climate models, the Southwest has become, and will continue to become, a drier and warmer place. Nearly 30,000 acres of the Valles Caldera National Preserve burned this past summer in the Las Conchas Fire.  Twenty-five percent of that was in the grasslands. Grazing domestic livestock places additional stress on already strained hydrological systems, rivers and streams. The Preserve is recovering well by all indications, but returning domestic livestock to the valleys could inhibit recovery.

“In the long-term the fire will have many beneficial effects on the ecosystems of the Valles Caldera National Preserve.” Said Bird. “But putting cows back onto the magnificent valleys will only be more destructive. This incredible landscape needs some time to fully recover from the fire”