Imagine a New Mexico with a healthy mosaic of native grasslands and woodlands amid vast open prairies and mountainous regions. Landscapes with antelope, deer, elk and bighorn sheep. Running water in bosques of willows and cottonwoods, alive with the song of birds and the bloom of native wildflowers.

This vision of New Mexico may no longer be a line from our grandfather’s stories thanks to a rapidly growing initiative involving the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, other agencies, conservation groups, landowners and industry partners.

“Restore New Mexico” is an aggressive program to bring back the state’s native grasslands, woodlands and riparian areas. Human impacts from rapid population growth, transportation networks, oil and gas development and livestock grazing have taken their toll on the landscape.

As a result, our landscapes are out of balance — what we see today is not the way things were, or should be in the future. Restoring landscapes is not just about aesthetics. It’s about economics, fish, wildlife and people.

The BLM has been working on the project since it was launched in 2005 with ranchers, landowners, conservation groups, the oil and gas industry, the New Mexico Association of Conservation Districts, county governments and a variety of agencies (the State Land Office, the Game and Fish Department, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service).

You may ask why this effort is different. Well, the difference is that we are doing it on a massive scale, across all landscapes regardless of ownership. That means the land gets taken care of holistically, not piecemeal, the way it should be.

We owe this to our wonderful partners who want to see New Mexico go down a different path — a “road less traveled,” you might say — not one of development at any cost but of a healthy land that can sustain its citizens in myriad ways for generations to come.

Last year, the BLM and its partners restored and reclaimed 145,000 acres of public land, much of it in southeastern New Mexico. Over the next several years, we hope to restore and reclaim over a million acres of federal, state and private land.

A core component of Restore New Mexico is to stem the growth of the invasive shrubs that have taken over the state’s grasslands in the past 150 years. Targeted species include mesquite, creosote, juniper and salt cedar, which today dominate much of the Land of Enchantment.

We’re also working with the oil and gas industry to reclaim lands impacted by historic oil and gas development.

Restoring landscapes enhances habitat for our state’s fish and wildlife, helps recover sensitive species and protects the outdoor values and way of life that make our state so unique. It also allows our economy to continue to flourish. For example, hunting and fishing expenditures in New Mexico exceed $330 million each year, and the amount spent by hunters on public lands is over $150 million annually.

When lands are restored, we will work with partners to return native wildlife to areas where they used to occur such as antelope, turkey, bighorn sheep, native cutthroat trout and river otters.

Are you ready to get involved? I hope so, because this work won’t get done by sitting around reading about it.

If you are a landowner, part of the oil and gas industry or others, you can contact the BLM — any field office or the State Office in Santa Fe — or its partners for further information. Conservation groups are working with BLM on specific habitat improvement projects; contact the BLM or your group to see how you can participate or otherwise support their work.

Many people will say you can’t make a difference. Well, they are wrong. I know they are wrong because we’ve been doing it since 2005, and we have the results to prove it!

Come join us and help us build a better “land of enchantment” for all.

Printed in the Albuquerque Journal, Sunday, April 22, 2007