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In New Mexico, a Land Management 'Experiment'
At Valles Caldera National Preserve, Locals Dictate Property Uses
 Listen to Howard Berkes' report.
 View a gallery of photos of the area.
Sunrise at Valle Grande in the Valles Caldera National Preserve.
Photo courtesy Jim O'Donnell
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Valles Caldera in northwest New Mexico
Erik Dunham, NPR
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In the Valles Caldera National Preserve, "there's oil and gas resources, there's timbering potential, there's geothermal potential, grazing, big elk herds, recreation. There's great possibilities, great opportunities -- but with opportunities, there's room for abuse."
David Henderson, New Mexico chapter, the Audubon Society
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William deBuys, chairman of the Valles Caldera trust.
Photo: Howard Berkes, NPR News
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A forested lava dome in the midst of the Valle Grande, the largest meadow in the Valles Caldera preserve.
Photo: Howard Berkes, NPR News
View enlargment.
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Sept. 23, 2002 --
Protracted battles over public lands have prompted Congress to try something new: a national preserve that is not administered by federal land managers, but by a board of trustees. From the Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico, NPR's Howard Berkes reports on an unprecedented experiment that could be used on public land elsewhere.
Valles Caldera is a 90,000-acre volcanic bowl, with scenic overlooks Berkes says "seem like the top of the world." William deBuys, chairman of the Valles Caldera Trust, calls it "a hardworking landscape... You can see logging roads just corkscrewing up the side, one road after another. At times it's had tens of thousands of sheep grazing on it. It's been managed as a ranch for over a century, really. And yet it's still in good shape."
The federal government bought the land two years ago, for $100 million. It's part of the national forest system, but it's not managed by the Forest Service, and not subject to forest regulations. Instead, it's overseen by a nine-member board of trustees appointed by the president. Mostly locals with backgrounds in fields such as ranching, forestry, government, and conservation, these trustees decide what activities to allow in the preserve based on their sense of what best serves the common good.
The board, says Berkes, "is saddled with a complex mandate: preserve and protect, but consider logging, grazing, hunting, hiking and other uses, and try to be financially self-sufficient in the process. It's new, it's experimental -- and it's already controversial."
For example, 700 cows now graze in the Caldera's grassy valleys -- a temporary arrangement to help 40 local ranchers stricken by drought. The ranchers are grateful, and they're pushing for more grazing. But they face opposition from critics, including John Horning of Forest Guardians, a group based in Santa Fe. "Every single stream on the Caldera is currently violating water quality standards because of the cumulative effects of logging, road-building and cattle grazing," Horning says. "And rather than abide by the precautionary principle and choose to do no harm, the Caldera board has already approved cattle grazing. And that's the first of what we fear will be a long line of examples of how not to manage a premier landscape."
Currently, visitors are banned from Valles Caldera's rough dirt roads, so hikers are bused in for organized, escorted tours -- for a fee of more than $40 each. Hunters clamor for a shot at the elk herd. Native Americans expect unlimited access to sacred sites within the preserve. Some people, including David Henderson of the New Mexico chapter of the Audubon Society, worry about how the board will balance these competing claims, and meet the congressional mandate to make the preserve financially self-sufficient: "There's oil and gas resources there, there's timbering potential, there's geothermal potential, grazing, big elk herds, recreation," Henderson says. "There's great possibilities, great opportunities -- but with opportunities, there's room for abuse. And when you have to make money, do you let somebody hike on the property for $5 a day, or do you turn it over to an oil and gas wildcatter to see if they can, in a quick turn around, get you a couple of million in revenue? There's pressures there."
DeBuys, who chairs the Valles Caldera Trust, says that scientists are now studying the preserve's streams, meadows, forests and wildlife. What they find will guide the board's decisions about future uses. "Where we're headed is into an experiment in land management that has never fully been undertaken before, and that's what's important about this place," he says. "We are collecting the data that will allow us to tell what direction this landscape is changing. And if it changes in a direction we don't like, then we know that's where the line is."
In Depth
Read about the legacy of explorer John Wesley Powell.
Other Resources
• Official Web site of the Valles Caldera Trust, the experimental group set-up to manage Valles Caldera.
• Information from the U.S. Forest Service about the Valles Caldera National Preserve.
• The New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, a group working to protect ranchers' interests at Valles Caldera.
• The New Mexico chapter of the Audobon Society, which is part of the Valles Caldera Coalition, a collection of environmental groups working to protect the natural features of the Valles Caldera National Preserve.
• Forest Guardians, a Sante Fe-based environmental group concerned about grazing and other "extractive" uses of Valles Caldera.
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