12/1/23

Interior, USDA continue to battle over grazing in Jemez

Indigenous history in the Valles Caldera goes back at least 8,000 years and obsidian quarried there for knives and projectile points is found throughout the region. The ancestors of Jemez Pueblo or Walatowa migrated into the area in the late 13th Century after Mesa Verde was laid bare. Pre-European Indigenous cultures in the Jemez Mountains and around the caldera raised turkeys, beans, squash and maize. 

That cattle have been allowed into national forests and other public ground is a crime that needs to end.
More than a year after conservation groups announced plans to take legal action regarding cattle illegally trespassing into the Valles Caldera National Preserve, those same groups say the federal agencies have not made significant changes to prevent the damage caused by the livestock. Cyndi Tuell, the Arizona and New Mexico director at Western Watersheds Project, said that after the groups filed a notice of intent to sue, the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service approached them and expressed an interest in working to solve the issue. The boundary fence is between land managed by two federal agencies and, because of that, the Forest Service and the Park Service share the responsibility to maintain the fence and work together to do so. Tuell said the Forest Service or the Park Service should make the ranchers pay for the forage cattle are illegally consuming outside of the allotments, but the Forest Service says that is not within its authority. Additionally, the cattle pollute the water in part by causing more erosion, which leads to more sediment in the streams. “There’s a whole host of problems in addition to the cow pies themselves contaminating the water,” she said. [Illegal cattle grazing remains a problem in Valles Caldera National Preserve]
Cattle manure contaminated with bovine growth hormones and antibiotics introduced into critical watersheds is epidemic even on public lands.
The National Park Service plans to implement prescribed burn projects in Valles Caldera National Preserve beginning December 2023 through the end of the 2023-24 winter season as conditions allow. The prescribed burns will occur in previously thinned areas where materials have been piled for burning. [NM Fire Info]
Since old growth forests and native grasslands are not agriculture the National Forest System should be moved from the US Department of Agriculture and into the Department of Interior.

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