In an Albuquerque Journal Letter to the Editor published February 12, 2023, Jim Baca, the former Albuquerque Mayor, former BLM Director, and former NM Land Commissioner stressed the importance of the role Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s Bureau of Land Management must play in the “protection of New Mexico’s and our nation’s wildest public lands, the health of its crucial rivers and streams, and the integrity of its irreplaceable sacred sites and cultural resources on even footing with extractive industry.”
He goes on to spotlight the many opportunities for protecting New Mexico’s BLM-managed lands ready and waiting for Wilderness protection.
“In New Mexico alone there are nearly 350,000 acres of BLM-managed lands the agency agrees are largely undisturbed and have wilderness values. Across the West that figure climbs to roughly 28 million acres of wilderness-ready public lands.
Places New Mexicans cherish like Cerro de la Olla and Otero Mesa can, and should, be conserved as Wilderness Study Areas.”
Read the full Letter to the Editor originally appearing in the Albuquerque Journal on February 12th, 2023 here.
