With modernization comes growth. Large industries are building establishments that provide two things: jobs for people and the opportunity for further development. This may sound like good news, but with the good also comes the bad.
Forests and wilderness areas are seeing a decline. Trees have been cleared to give way for big infrastructures. Animals have seen their homes lost by wild tractors that clear these places. At this point, we all need to learn the value of balance, which is what’s happening in Mexico right now.
Sabinoso Wilderness Area in New Mexico used to be an inaccessible and tiny refuge to wildlife five years before. Now, it has grown by almost 10,000 acres. This means that it has increased to a whopping 50 percent of its total size. The generous donation was given to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM), and this has been considered to be the biggest in history.
The people behind the large donation are the men and women of the Trust for Public Land. They gave the Cañon Ciruela as goodwill, and the company itself aims to create public spaces from private donations all over America. This also served as a follow up from another much smaller donation made in 2017. This was made in an effort to grow Sabinoso out from the confines of private landholdings that surrounded the area.
Sabinoso was said to be “a series of high, narrow mesas surrounded by cliff-lined canyons.” The BLM, manages wilderness areas in the US and they called the donated property a “rugged country primarily [of] piñon pine and juniper woodlands with occasional clusters of ponderosa pine. A perennial warm season grass savanna is found on the mesa tops. Streams periodically flow in the canyon bottoms supporting riparian vegetation including willow and cottonwood.”
The large area’s residents are black bears, mountain lion, elk, mule deer, and turkey. There are smaller animals living in it as well. In fact, Pueblo Tribal member and Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland paid a visit to the remote patch of the wilderness in New Mexico’s San Miguel County to talk about the gift. She knows the land’s history as a hunting ground of several native tribes, including the Jicarilla Apache and northern Pueblos, and has recognized it as an important landmark of the country.
Haaland talked about it with the San Francisco Chronicle and said, “We’re here today because we recognize the importance of preserving this special place. We know that nature is essential to the health, well-being and prosperity of every family and every community.”
The Cañon Ciruela is now the second public access point for the wilderness area. This has been opened for those thrill seekers who want to hike, set up primitive camps, hunt, and other activities that fall under the DOI of Ryan Zinke in 2017.
Moreover, the donation made can now provide permanent protection to the critical tributary watershed that feeds into the existing wilderness in the area. The act itself ensures there will be nothing but natural forces that take place in the life-giving waters that flow into the safe space, which is exactly the balance that the country needs.
The Trust for Public Lands is the kind of entity President Biden will be dependent on, especially when it comes to the conservation of 30 percent of America’s geographic area. The goal is to maintain it in its natural state. Part of the president’s said commitment is to prevent climate change. This is also a part of the America the Beautiful Act, which rather than sweeping government penmanship, hopes to depend primarily on private landowners and donations that hopefully can reach the “30×30 goal.”
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