Three op-eds on the Valles Caldera National Preserve — its management, its future, and the Valles Caldera Preservation Act — have been recently published in separate publications: the Albuquerque Journal, the Los Alamos Monitor, and Forest Magazine.
On June 21, Dave Menicucci published an op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal, entitled “No Simple Solution for Preserve.” In this piece, Menicucci, who has written a multitude of articles on the Valles Caldera and Jemez Mountains for different newspapers, examines the issue of cattle grazing on the Preserve. Since the Valles Caldera Preservation Act of 2000 stipulates that the Preserve must be operated as a working ranch, many infer that this means that cattle grazing must be allowed on what had been a private ranch for 140 years. However, exactly how to implement a grazing program that satisfies the various stakeholders of the Preserve is a challenge, he writes:
The Valles Caldera National Preserve continues to swirl in the vortex of controversy. Last month the preserve’s Board of Trustees selected a grazing proposal designed to provide multiple benefits to the preserve and the community. The project’s goal is to identify the best genetic makeup to maximize cattle performance in high elevations. It held promise for broad-based public acceptance because the project is led by New Mexico State University and includes the Jemez Pueblo and the New Mexico Beef Cattle Performance Association, a local industry group dedicated to enhancing grazing productivity.
Instead, the plan has engendered strong negative reactions from two significant, but dissimilar quarters — the Northern New Mexico ranching community and environmentalists.
Menicucci examines different ideas for how (and, indeed, if) to proceed with cattle grazing on the Preserve, and concludes by noting that the Preserve, “with its alluring grassy valleys and fish-laden streams, is juxtaposed against complex and sometimes conflicting legal objectives regarding grazing. It has become a political battleground with no easy resolution in sight.”
Tom Ribe of Caldera Action published “At the Center of Controversy,” an opinion piece in the Summer 2009 edition of Forest Magazine. The piece serves as an introduction to readers around the country about the unique legislative structure that governs the Preserve, the inherent problems that stem from it, the Preserve’s inability to approach profitability, and Caldera Action’s initiative to solve these problems by integrating the Valles Caldera into the National Park Service:
With the failure of the financial self-sufficiency requirement all but certain, conservation groups and other organizations see an urgent need to safeguard this landscape. “The legislation says the preserve will become national forest land in 2015 if financial self-sufficiency is not achieved,” says Caldera Action’s Monique Schoustra. “This is a nightmare scenario, since the national forest lands surrounding the preserve are overrun with cattle, off-road vehicles, and have minimal law enforcement. The place is special, world-class even, and needs high quality management and protection for ever-increasing numbers who want to visit.”
Caldera Action is pressing legislation that would transfer the area to the National Park Service as a preserve where hunting and fishing would be allowed and education and scientific research would be a core mission. With no champions of the trust experiment left in the New Mexico congressional delegation, Caldera Action and its allied groups feel optimistic that the National Park Service arrowhead may soon grace signs in the Valles Caldera National Preserve.
Ribe also wrote an opinion piece in the Los Alamos Monitor this month, touching on the results of having a Trust run the Valles Caldera National Preserve rather than a traditional government agency:
The “trust” concept apparently was intended to have the Valles Caldera run like a business instead of an agency, but accounting problems, and the fact that public lands have set costs for complying with laws and managing public values that have no monetary value has meant that the business idea is a poor match for a piece of wild country that the public wants protected and open to its owners.
The idea that the VCNP should achieve financial self-sufficiency or even come close to it cannot be achieved without commercial developments, corporate sponsorships and high fees collected from the public owners of the preserve.
Stating that the Valles Caldera Trust hires “private consulting companies for tens of thousands of dollars to do basic things that are done in the ranger offices of any public land agency at minimal expense,” Ribe asserts that “running the VCNP as a National Park Service Preserve will cost the taxpayer less than the Trust does and we will have a fully accountable and professional agency in charge.”
