WE'RE READY

The Western Landowners Alliance sees things differently. The alliance’s mission is to sustain working lands, connected landscapes, and native species, and executive director Lesli Allison says this argument is misguided.

“What’s happened in this debate too often is that proponents of opening streams have cast the issue as greedy landowners trying to exclude the public and privatize streams for their own enjoyment, their own profit,” she says. “By saying that, you create an enemy to rally people around.”

Allison explains that this argument also overlooks the critical role that landowners play as environmental stewards of these streams. She says that some of these individuals bought land specifically to invest in conservation, and together they’ve made significant investments to restore the waterways that flow through their property.

The USDA has awarded a $100,000 grant to the nonprofit Western Landowners Alliance to test new non-lethal tools ranchers can use to protect their livestock from wolves.

Funding comes from the Natural Resources Conservation Service through its Conservation Innovation Grants program, which supports the development of new management strategies to improve natural resource conservation on private lands.

Defining what it means to conserve land and assessing existing conservation projects will be key to meeting New Mexico’s climate goals, state agency leaders said this week.

Sarah Cottrell Propst, secretary of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, said the initiative builds on existing healthy soil projects, conservation easements and habitat restoration work.

“We want to preserve a role for natural working lands,” Cottrell Propst said.

A federal appeals court has affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by cattle ranchers over the alleged mislabeling of beef as a “Product of the U.S.A.” The original lawsuit named Tyson Foods, Cargill Meat Solutions, JBS USA and National Beef Packing Co., with plaintiffs claiming the companies mislead consumers by labeling beef as “Product of the U.S.A.” when the cattle may have been born and raised in another country.

A rare river fish in northern New Mexico received the highest federal protections as an endangered species Monday, following legal actions from environmentalists and backlash from state agencies. 

On March 1st, The New Mexico Supreme Court held that the state’s stream certification rule is unconstitutional. The rule was intended to provide clarification for both landowners, the public and law enforcement officials as to rights of public access on specific stream segments. Without such clarification, disputes and conflicts will undoubtedly continue. WLA is disappointed in this initial ruling.

Many landowners, including those directly involved in this particular case, have played a leadership role in restoring streams and fisheries, and in conserving essential lands and habitats. Partnering with these landowners and ensuring their investments in sustaining fish and wildlife populations are protected should be the highest priority. WLA will continue to fight to defend the rights of landowners to conserve and steward the land, water and wildlife resources in their care. 

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed that a Game Commission rule that allows landowners to restrict access to water that flowed through private property is unconstitutional. The ruling opens can of worms for landowners and anglers, and puts stream restoration projects on private lands at risk. “As a result of development, recreation and intensive agriculture, we continue to lose wildlife habitat and wildlife species at an alarming rate,” WLA said in a statement. “Yet people continue to demand more and more access to places where wildlife have traditionally sought refuge, including on private land.”

A hearing regarding the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) decision to shoot estray cattle in the New Mexico Gila National Forest was vacated Feb. 17 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico. The hearing was set for Feb. 22 and was brought on by the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association (NMCGA) and other industry groups with a lawsuit against the Feds.

The New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association (NMCGA), along with the New Mexico Federal Lands Council and two cattle companies, filed suit Feb. 9 in federal district court for New Mexico against the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) for shooting estray cattle in the Gila National Forest.

The Biden administration last year proposed listing the portion of the lesser prairie chicken population in eastern New Mexico and the southwest Texas Panhandle as endangered, which could be finalized this spring. That’s amplified an effort to give energy industries a trade-off: Work on conservation and repair of the bird’s habitat and, in exchange, gain protection from the liability of accidentally killing a potentially protected species during operations.