New Mexico joined a host of other states this year by enacting the Healthy Soil Act to encourage and help fund education and agricultural practices that enhance the condition of this critical natural resource. Here's how one rancher, Kimberly Barmann, CS Ranch, is helping to get the word out about the importance and benefits of healthy soil on New Mexico's rangelands.
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.
Sid and his wife, Cheryl, own the Carrizo Valley Ranch, a 3,300-acre property, all under a conservation easement held by NMLC. The ranch is located adjacent to the Lincoln National Forest, on the eastern flanks of the Jicarilla Mountains, just north of Capitan, NM. Their son, Floyd Goodloe, owns the ranch next door. The family runs cattle and has a hunting operation as well.