Restore New Mexico

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Under the management of Ray Keller, Restore New Mexico was launched by the Bush/Cheney Administration's Bureau of Land Management in 2005 to "restore" over 3 million acres of land with a focus on "controlling invasive brush species" and "reducing woodland encroachment."

Restore New Mexico was an "aggressive partnership"[1] between the Bureau of Land Management, cattle ranchers, and petroleum companies.

The program was based on the premise that so-called "virtual wastelands of creosote and mesquite" need to be reconverted into "fragile desert grasslands"[2] as a model for "rangeland conservation." [3] Native Juniper and Pinon trees were also heavily targeted and frequently killed.[4] And "aerial application of herbicide pellets to thin sagebrush has been the most widespread form of vegetative treatment and restoration" in the 1.4 million Farmington Field Office administrative area.[5]

At its core, the program denigrates vast swathes of Native forest + brushland as "desert" or "wastelands" to justify its conversion into "grassland/rangeland":

"Creosote and mesquite deserts are being replaced with healthy grasslands" "Overgrown woodlands are being restored to open savannas with abundant grasses"

This is based on the BLM's false history which erases historical deforestation across the region and falsely characterizes Native agro-ecosystems of Mesquite and Creosote as "invasive," and "noxious" despite their biocultural and ecological value in providing food, medicine, habitat and more:

"In the early 19th Century, grasslands dominated much of New Mexico. Over the past century, however, grasses have given way to invasive and noxious species like creosote, mesquite."[6]

The centrality of deforestation to the program's 'restoration' efforts is abundantly clear from official pages listing Accomplishments':

"thinning of overgrown forests, reductions in mesquite, creosote and salt cedar, plus the reclamation of abandoned oil fields"[7]

Another newsletter defined the program's "success by the numbers" with the following metrics: [8]

  • 29 oil and gas companies enrolled
  • $3 million dollar amount contributed by oil and gas companies
  • 847,000 acres withdrawn... from future wind or solar projects
  • 39 ranchers enrolled
  • 1.5 million ranching acres enrolled

Propaganda

Pamphlets

All three of Restore New Mexico's 'fact sheets' frankly describe the methods and goals of deforestation as central to its efforts.[9]

The first flier on "restoring desert grasslands" claims that "the first step in restoring native desert grasslands is the use of herbicides that kill the creosote."[10]

The second flier on "restoring desert grasslands" laments that "of the 15 million acres of desert grasslands in southern New Mexico, about two-thirds (10 million acres) have been invaded" and "are dominated by mesquite and other invasive plants."[11]

A third flier on prescribed burning praises the program's use of fire in "removing thick vegetation and reversing the intrusion of pinon and juniper into grasslands" as "restoring open woodlands."[12]

Slideshows

Despite defining "the problem" as "Invasive species have disrupted fragile ecosystems, replacing native plants and wildlife, and depleting water supplies" - Restore New Mexico completely neglects to mention that cattle are the number one example of an invasive species which has caused of this problem.

Instead, with the support of ranchers, the slideshow elaborates on this problem by instead blaming, page-after-page, the region's most prominent Native food and medicinal plants, from Mesquite to Creosote to Juniper and Sagebrush.

The slideshow celebrates such results as "invasive" creosote being replaced with grass (primarily for cattle) with over 134,000 acres of Creosote practically eradicated in 2008 in areas north and west of Las cruces. On Ladron Peak, north of Socorro, over "8,500 acres of thick stands of invasive juniper" were "thinned" - ostensibly to benefit wildlife.[13]

Millionth Acre Celebration

More than 100 partners gathered in Roswell, New Mexico, on October 16, 2009 to celebrate the initiative's "restoration" of over a million acres.

While there, they listened to Russel Fox explain mesquite removal efforts. Live demonstrations were provided of extractors killing trees and planes spraying herbicides.

Larry Nichols, President of Devon Energy, and Ray Miller, Secretary/Treasurer of Marbob Energy, received One Million Acre Awards from BLM New Mexico State Director Linda Rundell. Richard Ranger, Senior Policy Advisor at the American Petroleum Institute, received the Pecos District Restore Award.[14]

Partnerships

Fossil Fuels

American Petroleum Institute / BHP Biliton / BP America / Chevron / Cimarex Energy Company / Conoco Phillips / Devon Energy / Dow Chemical / Marathon Oil / Merit Energy Company / Pioneer Pipeline Company / XTO Energy / Yates Drilling Company / Yates Petroleum Company[15]

Greenwashing

The Nature Conservancy[16]

New Mexico

New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, New Mexico Oil and Gass Association, New Mexico State University (College of Agriculture, Range Improvement Task Force, and Cooperative Extension)[17]

Cattle Ranchers

Approximately half the land (1.5 million acres) which was deforested under this program was managed by ranchers. The BLM admits that the program would have been impossible without their cooperation, and that it was able to persuade them to participate because the program killed trees across millions of acres to provide more grasses for the rancher's livestock, primarily cattle.[18]

At the New Mexico Joint Stockmen’s Convention in December 2014, the BLM presented rancher Bill Wrye with the BLM 2014 Restore New Mexico Land Stewardship Award.

The Wyres worked with BLM on vegetative "treatments" including aerial herbicide "treatments" on over 8,900 acres to reduce sagebrush and thinning juniper on the Oscura Allotment, which includes over 33,400 acres of Federal land, 29,000 acres of state, and 11,500 acres of lands controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps).[19]

To recognize and celebrate the combined deforestation of 3 million acres (half was cattle rancher land), BLM program leader, Ray Keller, was bestowed the 2017 Ayudando Siempre Alli Award of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association (NMCGA) at the Joint Stockmen’s Convention in Albuquerque by Tom Sidwell - MCGA President, Holistic Management Instructor, and former US Military Counterintelligence spy (American War in Vietnam).[20]

Sources

  1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930164803/http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nm/programs/restore_new_mexico/restore_documents.Par.84892.File.dat/Restore%20Millionth%20Acre%20Newsletter%20Final.pdf
  2. ↑ https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/573cda13e4b0dae0d5e4b15a
  3. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160929014600/http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/restore_new_mexico.html
  4. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20170217014900/https://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nm/programs/restore_new_mexico/restore_documents.Par.28666.File.dat/Restoring_woodland_savannahs_central_nm_DH.pdf
  5. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930164803/http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nm/programs/restore_new_mexico/restore_documents.Par.84892.File.dat/Restore%20Millionth%20Acre%20Newsletter%20Final.pdf
  6. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930164750/http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/restore_new_mexico/what_is_restore.html
  7. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930164751/http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/restore_new_mexico/restore_new_mexico.html
  8. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930164755/http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nm/programs/restore_new_mexico/restore_documents.Par.88094.File.dat/Partnership%20Newsletter%20Final%20web.pdf
  9. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930165304/http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/restore_new_mexico/Restore_New_Mexico_Fact_Sheets.html
  10. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930165304/http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/restore_new_mexico/Restore_New_Mexico_Fact_Sheets.html
  11. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20170323074323/https://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nm/programs/restore_new_mexico/restore_documents.Par.64616.File.dat/Restoring%20Desert%20Grasslands%20-%20Mesquite%20Treatments%20in%20Pecos_V2.pdf
  12. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20170217014900/https://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nm/programs/restore_new_mexico/restore_documents.Par.28666.File.dat/Restoring_woodland_savannahs_central_nm_DH.pdf
  13. ↑ http://kswcd.org/conference/Success%20Stories_Debbie%20Hughes_Restore%20New%20Mexico%20PP.pdf
  14. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930165155/http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/restore_new_mexico/photo_gallery.html
  15. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930164755/http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nm/programs/restore_new_mexico/restore_documents.Par.88094.File.dat/Partnership%20Newsletter%20Final%20web.pdf
  16. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930164755/http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nm/programs/restore_new_mexico/restore_documents.Par.88094.File.dat/Partnership%20Newsletter%20Final%20web.pdf
  17. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930164755/http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nm/programs/restore_new_mexico/restore_documents.Par.88094.File.dat/Partnership%20Newsletter%20Final%20web.pdf
  18. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930164755/http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nm/programs/restore_new_mexico/restore_documents.Par.88094.File.dat/Partnership%20Newsletter%20Final%20web.pdf
  19. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160930164819/http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/info/news_releases0/2014/december/rancher_honored_for.html
  20. ↑ https://nmsueddyag.blogspot.com/2018/03/cattle-growers-honor-ray-keller-at.html?m=1
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