From New Mexico to the Caribbean: A story of road decommissioning, marine biology and the future of watershed restoration.
Ten teenagers struggle with snorkeling gear in the warm tropical waters of the Florida Keys. They giggle and sputter as they swim in the ocean, several for the first time ever. The kids are 1,000 miles from La Gallina, their rural community of 900 people in the mountains of northern New Mexico. The crystalline, blue ocean of the Caribbean is a world of difference from the majestic conifer forests 6,000 feet above sea level. The students of Coronado Middle School are attending a marine science camp partly because of a watershed restoration partnership in New Mexico funded jointly by the U.S. Forest Service and WildEarth Guardians.
The collaborators, including the Acequia del Medio Association (an irrigation group), NM Wildlife Federation, NM Department of Game and Fish, Coronado Middle School and Cordova Logging Inc., are in the second year of a four year, $450,000 road closure and decommissioning project. The goals of the restoration work are to restore watershed function, return natural fire to fire-dependent forests, and bring much needed jobs and income to forest-based communities.
Because roads have been shown to negatively impact soil, water quality, and wildlife habitat, meeting approved road densities is critical for forest and watershed restoration efforts to be complete and effective.1 Also because roads lead to increased human access and the associated fire ignitions, decreasing road density in wildlands can be an effective tool for re-establishing more natural fire regimes (seasonality and frequency).
A legacy of logging in northern New Mexico, especially in the productive mixed conifer forests at mid-elevations, has left its mark on the landscape — in high road densities. The Santa Fe National Forest has the highest road density of any forest in the Southwest Region. The road density exceeds that recommended by the Department of Interior of 1.5 km/km2 (2.5 mi/mi2) for properly functioning watersheds. The Coyote Ranger District has road densities as high as 4 mi/mi2 or nearly twice the standard for some management areas in the forest management plan (LRMP). The project area lies in the Lower Rio Chama Watershed, where assessments have identified roads as one of three primary factors contributing to stream sediment delivery that violates Clean Water Act standards.
In 2005 the Santa Fe National Forest, north of the city of Santa Fe and spanning both sides of the Rio Grande in the Jemez and Sangre de Cristo mountains, signed an administrative decision authorizing the decommissioning of 355 miles of road and closure of another 111 miles in order to bring the Coyote Ranger District into compliance with the LRMP standards. As the agency’s non-fire fighting budget plummets, the very best intentions can be ineffectual. Just as our National Forest System most needs funds for ecological restoration and maintenance, it suffers from a war-like mentality on fighting fire and that’s where the money goes (see story on pages 2-3).
But, thanks to Senator Jeff Bingaman’s (D-NM) understanding of the ecological needs of our national forests and his vision for an economic future for forest workers here in the “Land of Enchantment,” small-scale, grassroots forest restoration projects are flourishing with little controversy. The Community Forest Restoration Act of 2000 (Title VI, Public Law 106-393) appropriates $5 million annually in New Mexico through the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program (CFRP) and directs the Secretary to convene a technical advisory panel to evaluate proposals that may receive funding. Key requirements for funding include: diversity of stakeholders; wildfire threat reduction; ecosystem restoration, including non-native tree species reduction; reestablishment of historic fire regimes; reforestation; preservation of old and large trees; increased utilization of small diameter trees; and the creation of forest-related local employment. To date, the CFRP program has funded 102 projects in 17 counties for a total investment of $37.8 million, creating approximately 464 jobs.
WildEarth Guardians’ CFRP project was slow getting started, as staff from WildEarth Guardians navigated the Forest Service bureaucracy and archeological surveys were necessary before heavy equipment could begin ripping and re-contouring roads. WildEarth Guardians also had a reputation with the Forest Service and local communities that took time to overcome. But since the federal grant was awarded in 2006, 15 miles of road have been decommissioned or closed and 15 more miles are on deck. Now that the kinks have been worked out of the process and a productive working relationship established with the Forest Service, the collaborators expect to accomplish much more over the next two years. The original goal of the project was to decommission or close 20 miles of road, but at the current pace, the collaborators hope to accomplish closer to 90 miles.
In the meantime, five contractors from the local community have been hired for archeological surveys, heavy equipment operation, scientific monitoring and re-seeding, providing work for people that might normally have to commute long-distances. In return for their time and efforts monitoring forest structure, soil characteristics, and revegetation, the students from the northern New Mexico were paid a stipend. They chose to use the stipend in part to pay for a trip to Florida where they were able to test their scientific monitoring skills in a very different environment as well as participate in activities impossible at home, like snorkeling.
The Future for Forests
The future of forest and watershed restoration looks bright. In 2008, legislative work by Norm Dicks (D-WA) in Congress generated first-time funding to the Forest Service for the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative (LRRI). The LRRI provided $39.4 million for the Forest Service to address some of the problems created by the legacy of logging roads in our national forests. The money can be used for critical maintenance and restoration work, particularly where forest roads create risks to water quality and threatened or endangered wildlife species. In New Mexico and Arizona, over $3 million was awarded for activities that included restoring 75 miles of stream habitat, decommissioning 22 miles of unauthorized road, and improving 517 acres of watershed. Some of this money was used on the Santa Fe National Forest. The FY09 Interior Appropriations bill may provide up $70 million in funding for the Legacy Roads and Trail Remediation Initiative.
In 2008, Senator Bingaman and Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) re-introduced the Forest Landscape Restoration Act (S. 2593/ H.R. 5263), which would establish a program to select and fund projects that restore forests at a landscape-scale through a process that encourages collaboration, utilization of the best available science, local economic development, and leveraging local resources with national and private resources. A vision of long-term, sustainable forest restoration economies where commodities, if any, are subordinate is taking shape.
Of all the resources that forests produce, water may be the most important: stream flow from forests provides two-thirds of the nation’s clean water supply.2 As we rediscover the original mission of our National Forest System - securing favorable water supplies - as well as its obvious value in a world of rapidly changing climate, congressional efforts like those of Senator Bingaman and Representatives Dicks and Grijalva are all the more important. Perhaps in the not too distant future, forest-based communities will see strong economies anchored in the highest value to society of their surrounding forest lands. Long-term, sustainable jobs and income are a real benefit of investing in the restoration and maintenance of forests to foster their ecosystem services, including water quality and quantity.
Back in Gallina, the Coronado Middle School students have returned to their scientific monitoring of the road closure and decommissioning. Perhaps the most rewarding outcome of the CFRP project has been working with these motivated youth. The kids have learned systematic ecological monitoring skills in forestry, wildlife, botany, and soil sciences that they may carry on to a career or just remember fondly, but their contribution to clean water and a healthy watershed will persist long into the future.
— Bryan Bird is Wild Places Program Director at WildEarth Guardians in Santa Fe, NM. He lives at the edge of the Santa Fe National Forest in the Galisteo Watershed, a tributary of the Rio Grande.
Footnotes
1 For a complete review see Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) 1999, End of the Road. The Adverse Ecological Impacts of Roads and Logging: A Compilation of Independently Reviewed Research.
2 National Research Council 2008. Hydrologic Effects of a Changing Forest Landscape. Committee on Hydrologic Impacts of Forest Management, National Research Council of the National Academies. July 2008 <http://dels.nas.edu/dels/reportDetail.php?link_id=5402>
The collaborators, including the Acequia del Medio Association (an irrigation group), NM Wildlife Federation, NM Department of Game and Fish, Coronado Middle School and Cordova Logging Inc., are in the second year of a four year, $450,000 road closure and decommissioning project. The goals of the restoration work are to restore watershed function, return natural fire to fire-dependent forests, and bring much needed jobs and income to forest-based communities.
Because roads have been shown to negatively impact soil, water quality, and wildlife habitat, meeting approved road densities is critical for forest and watershed restoration efforts to be complete and effective.1 Also because roads lead to increased human access and the associated fire ignitions, decreasing road density in wildlands can be an effective tool for re-establishing more natural fire regimes (seasonality and frequency).
A legacy of logging in northern New Mexico, especially in the productive mixed conifer forests at mid-elevations, has left its mark on the landscape — in high road densities. The Santa Fe National Forest has the highest road density of any forest in the Southwest Region. The road density exceeds that recommended by the Department of Interior of 1.5 km/km2 (2.5 mi/mi2) for properly functioning watersheds. The Coyote Ranger District has road densities as high as 4 mi/mi2 or nearly twice the standard for some management areas in the forest management plan (LRMP). The project area lies in the Lower Rio Chama Watershed, where assessments have identified roads as one of three primary factors contributing to stream sediment delivery that violates Clean Water Act standards.
In 2005 the Santa Fe National Forest, north of the city of Santa Fe and spanning both sides of the Rio Grande in the Jemez and Sangre de Cristo mountains, signed an administrative decision authorizing the decommissioning of 355 miles of road and closure of another 111 miles in order to bring the Coyote Ranger District into compliance with the LRMP standards. As the agency’s non-fire fighting budget plummets, the very best intentions can be ineffectual. Just as our National Forest System most needs funds for ecological restoration and maintenance, it suffers from a war-like mentality on fighting fire and that’s where the money goes (see story on pages 2-3).
But, thanks to Senator Jeff Bingaman’s (D-NM) understanding of the ecological needs of our national forests and his vision for an economic future for forest workers here in the “Land of Enchantment,” small-scale, grassroots forest restoration projects are flourishing with little controversy. The Community Forest Restoration Act of 2000 (Title VI, Public Law 106-393) appropriates $5 million annually in New Mexico through the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program (CFRP) and directs the Secretary to convene a technical advisory panel to evaluate proposals that may receive funding. Key requirements for funding include: diversity of stakeholders; wildfire threat reduction; ecosystem restoration, including non-native tree species reduction; reestablishment of historic fire regimes; reforestation; preservation of old and large trees; increased utilization of small diameter trees; and the creation of forest-related local employment. To date, the CFRP program has funded 102 projects in 17 counties for a total investment of $37.8 million, creating approximately 464 jobs.
WildEarth Guardians’ CFRP project was slow getting started, as staff from WildEarth Guardians navigated the Forest Service bureaucracy and archeological surveys were necessary before heavy equipment could begin ripping and re-contouring roads. WildEarth Guardians also had a reputation with the Forest Service and local communities that took time to overcome. But since the federal grant was awarded in 2006, 15 miles of road have been decommissioned or closed and 15 more miles are on deck. Now that the kinks have been worked out of the process and a productive working relationship established with the Forest Service, the collaborators expect to accomplish much more over the next two years. The original goal of the project was to decommission or close 20 miles of road, but at the current pace, the collaborators hope to accomplish closer to 90 miles.
In the meantime, five contractors from the local community have been hired for archeological surveys, heavy equipment operation, scientific monitoring and re-seeding, providing work for people that might normally have to commute long-distances. In return for their time and efforts monitoring forest structure, soil characteristics, and revegetation, the students from the northern New Mexico were paid a stipend. They chose to use the stipend in part to pay for a trip to Florida where they were able to test their scientific monitoring skills in a very different environment as well as participate in activities impossible at home, like snorkeling.
The Future for Forests
The future of forest and watershed restoration looks bright. In 2008, legislative work by Norm Dicks (D-WA) in Congress generated first-time funding to the Forest Service for the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative (LRRI). The LRRI provided $39.4 million for the Forest Service to address some of the problems created by the legacy of logging roads in our national forests. The money can be used for critical maintenance and restoration work, particularly where forest roads create risks to water quality and threatened or endangered wildlife species. In New Mexico and Arizona, over $3 million was awarded for activities that included restoring 75 miles of stream habitat, decommissioning 22 miles of unauthorized road, and improving 517 acres of watershed. Some of this money was used on the Santa Fe National Forest. The FY09 Interior Appropriations bill may provide up $70 million in funding for the Legacy Roads and Trail Remediation Initiative.
In 2008, Senator Bingaman and Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) re-introduced the Forest Landscape Restoration Act (S. 2593/ H.R. 5263), which would establish a program to select and fund projects that restore forests at a landscape-scale through a process that encourages collaboration, utilization of the best available science, local economic development, and leveraging local resources with national and private resources. A vision of long-term, sustainable forest restoration economies where commodities, if any, are subordinate is taking shape.
Of all the resources that forests produce, water may be the most important: stream flow from forests provides two-thirds of the nation’s clean water supply.2 As we rediscover the original mission of our National Forest System - securing favorable water supplies - as well as its obvious value in a world of rapidly changing climate, congressional efforts like those of Senator Bingaman and Representatives Dicks and Grijalva are all the more important. Perhaps in the not too distant future, forest-based communities will see strong economies anchored in the highest value to society of their surrounding forest lands. Long-term, sustainable jobs and income are a real benefit of investing in the restoration and maintenance of forests to foster their ecosystem services, including water quality and quantity.
Back in Gallina, the Coronado Middle School students have returned to their scientific monitoring of the road closure and decommissioning. Perhaps the most rewarding outcome of the CFRP project has been working with these motivated youth. The kids have learned systematic ecological monitoring skills in forestry, wildlife, botany, and soil sciences that they may carry on to a career or just remember fondly, but their contribution to clean water and a healthy watershed will persist long into the future.
— Bryan Bird is Wild Places Program Director at WildEarth Guardians in Santa Fe, NM. He lives at the edge of the Santa Fe National Forest in the Galisteo Watershed, a tributary of the Rio Grande.
Footnotes
1 For a complete review see Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) 1999, End of the Road. The Adverse Ecological Impacts of Roads and Logging: A Compilation of Independently Reviewed Research.
2 National Research Council 2008. Hydrologic Effects of a Changing Forest Landscape. Committee on Hydrologic Impacts of Forest Management, National Research Council of the National Academies. July 2008 <http://dels.nas.edu/dels/reportDetail.php?link_id=5402>