TREES OF LIFE:FORESTS IN PERIL
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March 19th, 2016

3/19/2016

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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!                

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March 08th, 2016

3/8/2016

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We are being bombarded with the political races today and  again hearing the debate over the size of government. Last week one candidate proposed transferring the federal public lands to the states for management. The debate extends beyond the question of public lands, into rebuilding our infrastructure, administration of our education systems and even more. My concern is mainly on the public land issue but, the whole question of size of the federal government concerns me. It seems that the rationale for government is based on two primary needs. History has proven that societies cannot live together properly without defining the boundaries we must live within, ie. rules and regulations. It also seems that as we concentrate our rapidly growing population in urban areas, the importance of boundaries becomes more demanding. Therefore, the first need  for government is to provide the rules and regulations required for our society to function successfully. The second reason we find government essential is the fact that we continue to encounter problems and issues that are beyond our ability to solve individually. By pooling our resources, we are able to provide the services we demand and find resolutions for complex issues and problems. I suggest  one can not simply reduce the size of our federal government without indepth analysis of the complexity and magnatude of the individual issue or problem, in order to determine at what level of government we have sufficient resources to address the problem. 
The debate over federal public lands deserves the same intense type of analysis. We have cut taxes over the past 15 years which means less revenue. The result is the federal government has had to cut spending and the easiest place to cut was to reduce or eliminate federal grant monies to the States. Monies for education and highway maintenance and construction are examples. The result has been significant financial problems for the states with some states close to being bankrupt. States have done some creative efforts to try to offset the loss of grant monies such as selling state public lands, selling tollways to foreign countries and so forth. Transferring federal public lands to the States will, without question, result in their loss as public lands in most cases. These lands are a valuable asset to the American citizens and will play an ever-increasing role in providing the required environment for our future generations!             

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