Restoration Principles

Announced by Diverse Task Force

Gila National Forest
© The Nature Conservancy

The New Mexico chapter recently played a major role in developing guidelines for the state that will reduce controversy and legal challenges for forest restoration projects while ensuring that both ecological and economic goals are met.

An 18-member task-force spent almost a year developing the
New Mexico Forest Restoration Principles (pdf 96KB) and ultimately reached a consensus on ecological standards for how land management agencies should remove fuels, reduce wildfire threats and leave forests in a more natural state.

The group was formed after Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) approached the USDA Forest Service in 2004 about ways to secure a large scale supply of woody material for use in biomass burning power plants in the state. PNM estimated they would need about 7.7 million tons of biomass over a 30-year plant life for a single 35 mega-watt plant. This equates to about 260,000 tons per year, or 735 tons per day. Removing an average of 20 tons of biomass per acre and still leaving an intact forested landscape could result in about 35 acres per day or 10,000 acres per year being treated.

The amount of biomass fuel needed for the PNM project presented a potential challenge since people have differing views on how the land management agencies should remove fuels, reduce the wildfire threats to communities and still leave healthier forests in a more natural state. Use of these principles would reduce controversy and potential legal challenges for forest restoration projects of this magnitude, while ensuring that both ecological and economic goals are met.

New Mexico State Forester Butch Blazer said, “It’s my belief that because of the Task Force’s work, we will see significant reductions in time lost due to the kind of red tape that can affect these kinds of fuels reduction projects in New Mexico. I also believe these could be used by other southwestern states.”

Participating Organizations:

The Nature Conservancy

Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter

Bureau of Indian Affairs

Forest Guild

Bureau of Land Management

Forest Service

Center for Biological Diversity

NM State Forestry

Forest Guardians

Natural Resources Conservation Service

NM State Land Office

Restoration Solutions

Public Service Company of New Mexico

Rosemary Romero Consulting (Facilitator)