Yearly Archives: 2019

With their unique sounds and elaborate dance displays, the Lesser Prairie Chicken is one of New Mexico's iconic reminders of our vanishing grasslands and a species losing ground to development. As construction begins this week on its monumental Sagamore Wind Project in eastern New Mexico, wind developer, Xcel Energy, voluntarily buys mitigation credits in New Mexico's first Lesser Prairie Chicken Conservation Bank, the result of a two-year effort by a host of partners including: Common Ground Capital, RiverBank Conservation, Tomahawk CB LLC, US Fish & Wildlife Service, Mack Kizer/Lost Draw Ranch, and the New Mexico Land Conservancy (NMLC).  

Sounding more like a football cheer than new legislation, the state forestry folks refer to it as “FAWRA”– this year’s new Forest And Watershed Restoration Act (HB 266a) – created to provide funding to the state forestry division of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD) for projects out on the landscape to help secure our state’s water future through forest restoration work. Evidently, there’s A LOT of forest that needs attention in New Mexico.

With the recent signing of the Wildlife Corridors Act into law, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and the 2019 New Mexico State Legislature have recognized the importance of identifying our state’s key wildlife movement corridors. This legislation brings into focus an issue which is paramount to the future of New Mexico’s rural economies and continued natural heritage.