July 25, 2020 | By:

New Mexico Willd – Protecting New Mexico’s Wilderness, Wildlife, and Water

Featured image: courtesy of New Mexico Wild

The New Mexico Wilderness Alliance (New Mexico Wild) is dedicated to the “protection, restoration, and continued enjoyment of New Mexico’s wildlands and wilderness areas.”

Highly regarded for building diverse coalitions to protect public lands involving “ranchers, sportsmen, land grants, acequia communities, tribal and religious leaders, scientists, youth, and community leaders,” their work is supported by a growing statewide and national membership.

Back in 1995, several of us at Rewilding Earth participated in the first New Mexico Wilderness Conference that had been held in many years. After the Conference, wilderness enthusiasts joined together to support support the Fish and Wildlife’s Mexican Gray Wolf reintroduction led by Dave Parsons and then to gather interested wilderness supporters in the formation of a new organization in 1997, the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance.

We at Rewilding Earth are inspired and encouraged by the good work the Alliance does. They engage the community in stewardship and restoration of New Mexico’s wild public lands and advocate for upgrading the status of public lands. NM Wild works for the conservation gold standard of Wilderness protection under the Wilderness Act of 1964. Wilderness honors history and cultural heritage, helps watersheds and air quality and the overall health of our planet, and provides critical habitat for threatened species and supports biodiversity.

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Chaco Canyon National Historical Park, courtesy of NMWA

Alliance goals are important and ambitious. They continue to support Mexican Gray Wolf recovery and work to protect the Greater Chaco from oil and gas development. They worked with a coalition to achieve Wild and Scenic River designation for the Gila River in Southwest New Mexico that finally came to pass! They’re fighting the Terrero Mine adjacent to the Pecos Wilderness and are working to protect Caja del Rio and other threatened wildlands in New Mexico.

Peruse their website for more information about The New Mexico Wilderness Alliance.

Check out the Alliance’s blog about “Summertime in New Mexico” and possible favorite activities in some of the 23.2 million acres of NM public land.

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This May the Alliance launched an online Hiking Guide, prefaced by CDC guidelines, that features some of their favorite hikes. Shop the NM Wild site for a print copy of the Hiking Guide.

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