Restore New Mexico

Restore New Mexico is an aggressive partnership to restore woodlands, grasslands and riparian areas to a healthy and productive condition. What’s new about this effort is that the Bureau of Land Management is building on previous partnerships to begin restoring entire landscapes across the state. We’re working with partners on all land ownership types – state, private and federal – and involving communities, agencies, industry, organizations, and private citizens who want to join us.

Doing this takes vision and teamwork … and the rewards are great! Our focus is on large-scale restoration efforts, dealing primarily with invasive and exotic brush species, including mesquite, juniper, creosote and salt cedar. We’re also working with the oil and gas industry to reclaim lands impacted by historic oil and gas development. Reclamation treatments will focus on repairing impacted habitat, erosion, and invasive plants that have resulted from decades of mineral development.

The BLM and its partners restored and reclaimed more than 250,000 acres of public land statewide in 2007, far surpassing the 2006 total of 145,000 acres (most of which were in southeast New Mexico).  In the past three years, we’ve restored 500,000 acres!  We hope to restore up to 500,000 acres of public, state and private lands this year and in the future.

What’s the big deal here? Is there something wrong with our landscapes today?

In addition to the expansion of invasive plants over the past 140 years, our state has experienced degraded water quality due to erosion, and an increased threat from catastrophic wildfires to wildlife habitat and communities bordering public lands.

BLM estimates that about one-fourth of the 13.4 million acres of public land in New Mexico need some restoration activity to help return these lands to a healthier natural state. Creosote, mesquite and juniper trees are dominating landscapes that used to be grasslands and salt cedar has replaced native riparian vegetation along streams and rivers. These disturbed areas cannot support the numbers of fish and wildlife our state used to have.

New Mexico is a major producer and exporter of oil and natural gas, helping our nation meet its needs for energy (and creating lots of jobs in the process). This work must be done in an environmentally responsible manner – our public lands are worth protecting! Over the past decade BLM has ensured that all new wells on public lands have been drilled in full compliance with federal regulations. However, where land has been disturbed by past development before today’s strict environmental standards were developed – and where erosion, habitat fragmentation and other impacts resulting from New Mexico’s rapidly expanding population have occurred – we must work together to restore them.