View source for Tom Sidwell


= US Federal Career =

== USDA Forest Service ==

While in college in the 1960s, Sidwell worked summers for a local rancher, Raymond Walker, who bid on jobs for the Forest Service. He constructed trails, did erosion control, built fences, and learned to use dynamite. Working in the [[Gila Wilderness]], he learned to clear brush with a crosscut saw and drill holes by hand in boulders for dynamite.<ref>https://issuu.com/nmstockman/docs/nms_november_22</ref>

== Military Counterintelligence ==

During the US War in Vietnam, Sidwell was drafted into the army and quickly promoted to Sargent. After being stationed in Germany with US Military Intelligence, he earned top secret and OFCO (Offensive Counterintelligence Operations) clearance.

He was then deployed from Germany to Vietnam, and fought with US military intelligence attached to an engineering company.

After returning to Germany, he lived "a life that would read like a James Bond novel, sending and receiving encrypted messages and traveling to deliver top secret documents. To his knowledge, some of his work has not yet been de-classified."

Following his official army discharge, Sidwell returned to [[New Mexico State University||NMSU]] and graduated with a degree in range management.<ref>https://issuu.com/nmstockman/docs/nms_november_22</ref>

== Bureau of Land Management ==

Sidwell then went to work for the [[Bureau of Land Management]], where he bent regulations in favor of ranchers "as far as he dared."

While working for the BLM in the early 1980s, Sidwell attended a course taught by Rhodesian counterinsurgency expert [[Allan Savory]] on his so-called method of [[The Savory Method|holistic cattle grazing]].

= Holistic Ranch Management =

For the next four decades, Sidwell has been a "true believer" in the Savory Method of intensive grazing and holistic management.<ref>https://www.abqjournal.com/1188651/rotational-grazing-catching-on-with-ranchers.html</ref>

According to his children, "every ranch we ever lived on" he "implemented the HRM system." Examples include the 65k acre G Bar F Ranch Sidwell managed in the late 1980s under contract with the USDA Forest Service, and the JX Ranch in eastern New Mexico he bought in 2004, where he bulldozed an "invasive" Native Mesquite and Juniper Forest like [[Sid Goodloe]].<ref>https://issuu.com/nmstockman/docs/nms_november_22</ref><ref>https://www.qcsunonline.com/story/2014/08/12/publishfeatured-newsnews/local-rancher-hosts-seminar-on-holistic-ranching-success/12234.html</ref><ref>https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-01-17/the-jx-ranch/</ref>

In 2013, he gave an hour-long keynote presentation for the [[Quivira Coalition]] in which he prominently featured a decade of his continuous Juniper-Mesquite deforestation, claiming that he "slaughtered all these trees" as a drought prevention strategy<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H8ipfypj-g</ref> which "improved" the soil carbon cycle.<ref>https://pitchstonewaters.com/healing-the-carbon-cycle-with-cattle/</ref>

== Political Influence ==

According to the November 2022 edition of New Mexico Stockman:

<blockquote>"This cowboy has singlehandedly killed bills that were being debated before the New Mexico Legislature just by talking them to death... when it comes to property rights and land stewardship, Tom Sidwell as a lot to say."<ref>https://issuu.com/nmstockman/docs/nms_november_22</ref></blockquote>

In the 1980s, he organized local ranchers to start the Public Land Use Advisory Council in coordination with the DOI Bureau of Land Management and the USDA Forest Service.

== New Mexico Policy Maker Day ==

In May 2014, [[Holistic Management International]] and the Ranney Ranch near Corona, New Mexico hosted the New Mexico Policy Maker Day with the support of the [[Thornburg Foundation]]. Both Tom Sidwell and [[Sid Goodloe]] shared their experiences 'mitigating drought' on their ranches with 'holistic management,' which actually entailed the mass deforestation of Juniper and Mesquite trees.<ref>https://holisticmanagement.org/blog/new-mexico-ranching-summit-a-success/</ref>

== New Mexico History Museum ==

The New Mexico History Museum is managed by the state government of New Mexico. For its 2014 exhibit "Cowboys Real and Imagined" it hosted a panel including numerous ranchers affiliated with [[Allan Savory]] and his [[The Savory Method|method of greenwashing]], including Tom Sidwell, [[Sid Goodloe]], and Courtney White, co-founder of the [[Quivira Coalition]].<ref>https://media.newmexicoculture.org/release/305/ranching-in-the-22nd</ref>

== New Mexico Cattle Growers Association ==

Tom Sidwell was the President of the [[New Mexico Cattle Growers Association]] as of June 2018,<ref>https://www.abqjournal.com/1188651/rotational-grazing-catching-on-with-ranchers.html</ref> a lobbying organization which has successfully influenced New Mexico's state legislation.<ref>https://www.aaalivestock.com/dear-nmcga-members-friends-2/</ref>

At the Joint Stockmen’s Convention in Albuquerque, he bestowed the NMCGA's 2017 Ayudando Siempre Alli Award on BLM official [[Ray Keller]] in recognition of the [[Restore New Mexico]] program he led at the [[Bureau of Land Management]] greenwashing the mass deforestation of 3 million acres of Juniper-Mesquite Forest across southeast New Mexico via uncontrolled burning and aerial pesticide spraying.<ref>https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2018/03/19/conservationists-fight-invasive-species-plants-eddy-county-rivers/433448002/</ref>

In December 2021, he was awarded the association's "2022 Cattleman of the Year" award.<ref>https://issuu.com/nmstockman/docs/nms_november_22</ref>

= Sources =