The past week provided an opportunity to visit with a good friend from Magdalena, New Mexico. James's ancestors settled in this area over three hundred years ago and he has been able to accumulate family records and information about the land use of this area. We visited sites that were once covered with large ponderosa pine trees and today are high dessert lands with scrub junipers and scrubby pinion pine. A few scattered ponderosa pine trees that were saplings can be found but, most are small, large crowned trees that are slowly dying of old age and insect damage. James explained what the Spanish land grant his family managed looked like before the forests were destroyed, starting in the 1840's. Prairie grass grew waist high, the shade from the forest cover reduced the summer temperatures, the forested lands provided more moisture and the non-forested lands were rolling prairies with no arroyos. In 1848, the lands in this area were ceded to the United States and the development began to intensify. Large timber companies moved in and began removing the ponderosa pine trees and deforesting the lands. At one time, there were five sawmills operating in Magdalena on a 12 to 14 hour schedule. By the 1930's most of the lands had been timbered and little tree cover remained. Rainfall today averages 8 inches per year and large arroyos are common place. Arroyos are gullies that have developed as a result of erosion from the limited rain that is available. Without the forests, the sun dries out the soil, increases the air temperatures, provides very little erosion protection and significantly reduces the rich organic material needed to grow healthy vegetation. The deer, elk and antelope populations have shrunk and today it requires 40 acres of grazing lands to sustain one cow. When the rain does come, it quickly runs off the land today creating larger and deeper arroyos, and takes the silt and soil into the Rio Grande River where it silts in the spawning beds of the fish and changes the river characteristics.
Yes, we are connected to and dependent upon our Natural Surrounding for our own survival, and what we do to our environment we do to ourselves. Things can improve but, Mother Earth can not do it by herself. It will require our help by intensifying proper management. Our scientists must refocus our management efforts to healthy diverse forest communities and not continue to measure success by the resources and profits we can take from these valuable forested lands. Scientific technology must be married to the human element if we hope to sustain our human environment for future generations!
Yes, we are connected to and dependent upon our Natural Surrounding for our own survival, and what we do to our environment we do to ourselves. Things can improve but, Mother Earth can not do it by herself. It will require our help by intensifying proper management. Our scientists must refocus our management efforts to healthy diverse forest communities and not continue to measure success by the resources and profits we can take from these valuable forested lands. Scientific technology must be married to the human element if we hope to sustain our human environment for future generations!
