Conservation
The Conservation Committee of the NPSNM serves to supply members with information on issues pertaining to the conservation of native plants and habitats on public and
private lands in New Mexico. We offer this information to assist interested individuals in learning about the laws, agencies and programs involved in plant related issues.
Involvement provides the catalyst for change that can benefit our native heritage.
Conservation Corner
A quarterly column by Jim Nellessen, NPSNM Conservation Chair
Action Alerts
The purpose of the NPSNM is to promote the conservation of our native flora, plant habitats and encourage the appropriate use of native plants in New Mexico.
We pursue this goal through education. NPSNM has a diverse membership and we encourage our members to let their voices be heard as individuals. In our effort to keep you
informed of potential conservation issues that may affect our state and the health of our environment, we provide some links that may be of interest to some members of the society.
- The Native Plant Society of New Mexico is very concerned about the impacts of off-road vehicles on our native flora,
and about the spread of invasive plant species.
Read the NPSNM position paper written by Donna Stevens, Gila Chapter, May 2008.
New Mexico Contacts
State Legislative Contacts
contact Governor Bill Richardson: http://governor.state.nm.us/emailchoice.php?mm=6
send email to the House of Representatives: nm_house@technet.nm.org
send email to the Senate: nm_senate@technet.nm.org
send email to the Legislative Council Service: nm_lcs@technet.nm.org
send email to the Legislative Finance Committee: nm_lfc@technet.nm.org
send email to the Legislative Education Study Committee: nm_lesc@technet.nm.org
The Ebb and Flow of Natural Plant Communities
Does conservation of native plant communities mean preserving everything we see in a certain habitat or landscape location as is? In other words to preserve the existing community's appearance as a static and unchanging entity? No! Most plant communities are dynamic, continually changing entities. That rate of change may be relatively fast to human eyes if it happens to be in an early successional stage (e.g. 5 to 50 years) , but it is usually a very slow process that lasts much longer (e.g. hundreds to thousands of years). And yes there are such things as climax communities. A climax plant community is the community that, based on our accumulated scientific knowledge, is the community that is most stable (i.e. resilient or resistent to change) and consequently most long-lasting on a certain landscape. The plant community that will occupy a particular landscape will be dependent on the soil type or characteristics, the parent material (e.g. rock substrate) from which that soil formed, the slope and aspect, and overall climatic conditions. Some plant species have much wider tolerance ranges for soil types and local climatic conditions. For example, ponderosa pine generally requires at least 12 inches of rain or more a year and does not tolerate alkaline soils. Which is why it does not naturally grow in say the Albuquerque/Rio Rancho area without a lot of extra water and substantial soil amendments. Whereas a plant like many-headed groundsel (Senecio spartioides) can be found from 3000 feet to 8000 feet on a variety of soil types and sites. It is an early successional opportunistic species that takes advantage of temporary openings in the plant community. Although soil types affect plant community composition, plants also affect and modify the soil. Plants can affect nutrient availability, pH, salt content, organic matter content, and may add chemical inhibitors to the soil, e.g. allelopathic compounds that affect other plants. Consequently, the soil is not an independent, unchanging entity, it modified by living things.
Plant community change can happen quickly in what might otherwise appear to be a stable community. The massive die-off of thousands of pinyons in many parts of New Mexico due to the combined effects of drought and bark beetles has been a sudden change. This sudden change, just as the sudden change resulting from fires does not have to be viewed as a negative thing. Historic fires are what have given us many of our nice stands of aspen. Pinyons and junipers have been invading many of our nice grasslands for at least the past 75 to 100 years and perhaps a few hundred years. Part of this is due to past overgrazing practices, part is due to periods of higer precipitation or the timing of precipitation events. For similar reasons mesquite and creosote bush have been making advances into desert grassland. Contrastingly, another shrub dominated community has been substantially reduced by human activity, Havard shin oak communities that occur in southeast New Mexico. Many of these natural areas in adjoining Texas have been eliminated. New Mexico remains one of the strongholds for this plant community type. In summary, change in plant communities is expected. Natural change (if we define it as change beyond human influence) should not be a concern. How much change we are willing to tolerate at the hands of human influence is another question. Yes, humans are a part of the ecosystem, but we did not create the system. Because we live within the system, and we appear to be the only organism that has studied the system, come to an understanding of how the system works, and have tremendous influence on the health of the system, we have an obligation to protect that system, and all the processes that make the system work.
Federal Lands Grazing
Over the last several years we have heard a lot about the controversies over grazing livestock on federal lands, mostly in the west (e.g. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands). We have even had some big news stories in New Mexico. Federal lands grazing has a strong historical context related to settlement times. Opinions run very strongly on both sides of the federal lands grazing issue. It is not so much that grazing per se is bad, but more of how it is managed that becomes a problem. Great Plains grasslands actually do better on some grazing, after all, there used to be vast herds of bison roaming the plains. Desert grasslands tend to be more susceptible to damage, and it varies by species (e.g. black grama is known to be more sensitive to over-grazing). As a beef eater myself I do not want to see cattle go away, but as a naturalist, plant ecologist, and native plant enthusiast, I do want to see our native rangelands managed properly. My dream is simply to see a healthily managed ecosystem that conserves our native flora and fauna. Regardless of what side of the fence you sit on, it would seem to me all parties would want a healthy natural environment, because it is very important to all of our livelihoods. Caring for the land that sustains all of us should bring all parties together, not divide them. That said, I would like to make a few comments about the proposed Voluntary Federal Grazing Permit Buyout Act.
Recently, the NPSNM Board voted its support of this act currently being put together by the National Public Lands Grazing Campaign. In essence, federal grazing permittees and lessees may voluntarily waive their grazing permits or leases to the appropriate managing agency in exchange for a generous financial compensation. The plan would pay the permittee $175 per AUM (animal unit month=amount of forage that would feed one typical cow and calf for one month). Compare this to existing programs under the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture's Farm Bill Conservation Program that pays farmers to not plant on marginal lands and the Grassland Reserve Program that pays landowners for conservation easements to limit development and subdivision. The federal agency would then permanently retire the grazing allotment. As stated, the program is voluntary, so each permittee could voluntarily decide to receive the compensation depending on his or her financial situation and stage in their life plans. Some statistics to keep in mind: only 3% of all livestock producers in the U.S. have federal grazing permits, although it does represent 22% of producers in 11 western states; there are a total of 27,000 permit holders, but 880,000 livestock producers have no federal grazing permits. Finally, the percentage of U.S. beef produced from federal lands is less than 3%. Consequently, federal rangelands could be returned to native wildlife like deer, elk, pronghorn and others, and be given a chance to return to natural conditions. Although this itself may take awhile because in areas now dominated by shrubs where once grasses dominated, shrubs will continue to hold dominance unless some other environmental influence, perhaps us humans again, push the balance back the other way through ecological restoration.
Otero Mesa - An Example of New Mexico's Forgotten Lands
By now many of you may have heard about the controversy regarding the Otero Mesa area in southern Otero County. The area lies east of US 54 and Orogrande, while NM 506 (a dirt road) crosses through the northern portion of the area. It is one of the least roaded areas in the state and contains many areas of native, relatively undisturbed Chihuahuan Desert grassland. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has issued a final environmental impact statement that will open up much more of this area to oil and gas drilling. The NPSNM conservation committee, put together an information package for Governor Richardson a couple months ago (highlighting the plant diversity of the Chihuahuan Desert, the number of rare plant species, and how it is the least conserved of the three great Southwestern American deserts). As some of you may have read in the newspapers, our governor is against the BLM plan and has commanded state agencies to make the BLM plan difficult to implement, or to at least hold drilling plans to the tightest possible environmental oversight.
This planned development is actually the result of a greater problem in New Mexico, our own lack of concern for native and natural grasslands and deserts. Most people talk about the beautiful mountains and going hiking through the pine and spruce forests and we do have many nice high elevation areas protected from development. But this is not the case for our low elevation habitats. Think of how often you have heard people joking and discussing how they hate driving through places like Kansas and west Texas, the "boring flat terrain." This is because many people have no appreciation or understanding for what grows and lives there. As a plant enthusiast I enjoy driving through flat areas as much as mountains and forested terrain, because there is always vegetation there to be observed. I enjoy observing the various forms of plant life wherever I go.
Preserving Otero Mesa may be a lost cause at this point. Centuries ago, the early settlers did not know what else to do with deserts and dry grasslands other than attempt to cultivate some of them and turn cattle loose on the rest. We all know one cannot raise too many cattle in arid climates. Cattle fair far better in places like Kentucky, Ohio, and Florida where there is lots of green grass. Historically for humans these habitats have always been inhospitable and uninviting due to the lack of water. But this is the 21st century, we do not live in the 1800's anymore. There are not many places left where one can go into an area and observe nothing but native vegetation and landscapes in the absence of human contrived structures. New Mexico is one of those places where you can still find some of these areas. If you have never been out into the desert or grasslands, miles away from human buildings (as I have on a few occasions), and stopped, looked and listened to nothing but the wind and a few birds, I urge you to do so soon. The opportunity for such experiences will soon be gone from New Mexico and the western United States, just as they are already gone from the eastern US, unless we awaken the eyes of more people to the wonder and serenity of natural wide-open spaces and its native vegetation.
