Mary-Charlotte Domandi:
We caught up with Teresa today in the airport, the day after she visited the Rio Grande Del Norte national monument, which is near Taos here in Northern New Mexico
Teresa Leger Fernandez:
In terms of like what’s happening in my life: One, I am sore today. And that is because yesterday was so spectacular of a day. We went to go visit the Cerro de la Olla, which is a beautiful cerro, a volcanic eruption with a caldera within the Rio Grande National Monument. And it really is a recognition of the fact that in addition to protecting land, you also want to protect the heritage in an area. And the Rio Grande National Monument is really a collaboration with tribes and ranchers and stakeholders. When people say stakeholders, that means the people who live there. So yesterday we went and visited the Cerro de la Olla, which is this beautiful Cerro–small mountain, small hill, a big hill, small mountain–that actually has a caldera; it was a volcanic eruption and it is 2000 feet above the plateau there. We climbed those two thousand feet. The caldera is spectacular. There are herds of elk and deer and the antelope run below, and it is an area that we’re going to protect. And it’s spectacular, I want everybody to go visit it, especially you can go visit it now and see how important it is to indeed protect. You get to see views from there to everywhere–the San Juan mountains, you get to see all the way to Sandia, you get to see Pedernal. But you also get to experience the spectacular beauty of New Mexico and how important it is that we preserve it.
MCD:
How does being a national monument protect heritage specifically?
TLF:
In this case, it is very indicative of what we need to do is engage the local ranchers, the local farmers, Taos Pueblo. The monument comes down enough so you want to engage other Pueblos and you say, let’s make sure that whatever we do on this, we interpret it well, we preserve the area so that if it is being used for traditional and cultural purposes, that those uses can continue. And when we move the designation up one to turn it into a wilderness–right now it’s protected so you can’t do mining on there, but when we move it up to a wilderness, it means you cannot have motorized vehicles up there. So there will no longer be roads cut or improperly used on the federal environment. There won’t be ATVs zooming up and down and hurting the grasses and the vegetation. So that’s sort of one of the big issues of when you move it to a wilderness, you remove the motorized vehicles. And so you’re going to have to walk or take a horse up to the top to see that spectacular view.
MCD:
Now is that in process, this land going into wilderness designation,
TLF:
I will introduce a bill next week to designate it as wilderness. And this process began before me. It was something that the various organizations like Wild New Mexico, New Mexico Wildlife Federation, Conservation Voters New Mexico have been working on together with, like the two ranchers that we met with yesterday. One of the ranchers couldn’t make it cause he’s in his nineties, but I rode out there and got to see what one of the ranchers was doing and how he was creating catchment areas to capture water because it is a very arid environment, and how supportive he was of this designation. What we have in New Mexico is we have an ability for the different communities to come together and work together for a common goal. Now, the ranchers reason why he wants it as a designation, he thinks it’s important that it’ll help the herd of elk. And he does have elk permits on his land and a stronger, healthier herd is good for him. Taos Pueblo wants it protected as a wilderness because they want to make sure that traditional cultural properties are not inadvertently ruined or discovered or made inaccessible. The environmentalists believe that it’s important to protect additional land from development and put it into its highest level of protection. So everybody has a different reason that they might want it protected. This is what I love, is they’re all coming together with a focus on that common goal. We also had the County Commissioner, wonderful Commissioner Vigil climbed to the top with us. So it’s something that is supported truly from the grassroots, since we were very concerned with what the grasslands looked like there. And that’s, what’s exciting about New Mexico is we know how to come together and to work collaboratively on common goals.
MCD:
There was sort of cultural conflict a couple of generations ago when a lot of the traditional Land Grant land was basically taken away and put into government designations at people who had been grazing or cutting firewood from those lands were no longer able to. And that created a lot of cultural animosity and bad feeling. Where is that at now?
TLF:
So you’re referring to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 was supposed to protect land rights. And it did not achieve that goal because so much land was stolen from those who held land grants and who owned the land–Hispano families and as well as Native Americans also lost a lot of land. Look at any forest in New Mexico, the Carson, the Santa Fe. Any forests in Santa Fe is made up of land that was at one time indigenous land, and then maybe later Land Grant land. So that is a sad part of our historical trauma. But what you have now is there’s groups working together and realizing that this is the land status, but there are things we can do together to improve it. And so this example is exactly that, to say we’re going to make this a wilderness designation, but the way we are going to do it is to say wood cutting and firewood gathering is still allowed. You’re going to just have to, you know, you pull your truck up to a certain space, not going to be able to take your truck all the way up to the top because that would hurt the ecosystem. So this is an example of where traditional uses will continue. There just won’t be any new roads and you’ll have to leave your truck parked a little bit at the bottom.
MCD:
When a bill like this is introduced, to what extent does it become partisan battle in your observations so far? Or is this something that’s basically by and for the people of New Mexico or whatever state. And then it’s pretty easy to get the designation.
TLF:
I think that there will be those who do not want to see any additional public lands protected. There is the “30 by 30” goal that president Biden, together with lots of environmental and land-based people, think is important to protect 30% of our public lands from future development by 2030 in order to meet our goal of protecting our planet from climate catastrophe. So there are people who are just against that, period. But there are many more who are on the ground who are going to come in and say, no, I’m sorry, everybody in the community supports this. So from a partisan perspective, I do not, I don’t see anybody doing it. I think this is going to be one of those kinds of bills where there is a recognition that the people closest to the land who are most impacted are supportive regardless of party affiliation, and it’ll have a partisan support. A lot of the land bills that I’ve seen, and I haven’t seen a lot, but I’ve seen when it comes down to, Oh no, you want to protect the grasslands in Nebraska, yeah, we get that. So that there is a recognition that the voice on the ground is the one that must be listened to.
MCD:
And those voices on the ground are pretty clear and unanimous, would you say, around this issue here in New Mexico?
TLF:
We have not heard anything against it right now, and that was a pretty varied group from people who have been here since time immemorial, to ranchers who acquired the land, you know, Hispanos in New Mexico that have been here for centuries, to somebody who runs a beautiful llama, you know, to take people into the wilderness areas, but using llamas, which looks like a lot of fun cause you don’t have to carry that big pack on your back. So you had people who were newer to New Mexico supporting it, and then people who’ve been here since time immemorial supporting it. We’ve got the town of Taos, the city of Taos, because there was a recognition that places like this, when they become known to people, it is such a marvelous thing that we could put this place into wilderness. People look for wilderness areas, tourists, eco-tourists, and that this will be yet another draw that increases visibility. Because it’s there right now, but people might not know about it, but having it in wilderness, there are those who really want to go to places of wilderness because of the beauty and solitude.
When you get up there and you’re looking from that caldera, 360 degree , you see what a spectacular environment New Mexico is. You could just imagine all that volcanic activity because it has all these cones in that valley and you see the gash of the Rio Grande Gorge, then you see where it starts and how it opens up and goes so deep. I mean the understanding of our geology that you get from standing up there is absolutely mind blowing. It was such a great experience. And I loved being able to say, yes, I will work with you on this bill, but I need to make sure I go up there so I could experience it, and speak in exclamation points about why it’s so important. That was a really fun day to be a Congresswoman yesterday. Now I am in an airport, cause that’s what we do.
MCD:
You’re heading back to DC.
TLF:
I am heading back to D.C. So that’s what you do, you get to be in a place of natural beauty one day and the next day you’re waking up at 5:30 in the morning so you can get back to do your work in D.C.
MCD:
Before we go let’s talk just quickly about the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, which was designated by President Obama and then scaled way back by President Trump and now there’s consideration of restoring those boundaries. Where are we at with that now?
TLF:
That’s one of the reasons why it’s nice to get something designated wilderness because that’s clear. Once Congress designates it wilderness, that’s it. So, what I understand we’re going to see in Bears Ears is that there is a recognition that that will be re-designated. But I think that Congress is also looking at that because we recognize how important that is to make it very clear that once an area has been designated, that a president can un-designate it, and that maybe that particular place needs an even stronger protection, which we will look at in Congress. I was at the listening session with Secretary Haalland and Bears Ears came up repeatedly as did Chaco Canyon. It came up yesterday when we were talking. So Bears Ears is recognized as an incredibly important cultural area in need of permanent protection.
MCD:
And on that note, we’ll let you go. Thank you.
TLF:
Now I’ve got to go find somewhere that is okay to grab some nutrition between flights.
MCD:
Well, go get nutrified.
TLF:
Okay. Thank you. Bye. Bye everybody.
MCD:
Good flight. Bye.
