P.O. Box 131291 Houston, Texas 77219 (832) 598-GPRC www.gprc.org Great Plains Restoration Council [email protected]

At the western edge of the Southern Great Plains, where the last reaches of America’s mid-continental grasslands roll up into the Southern Rocky Mountains, a new shortgrass prairie wildland preserve is taking form. The 13,500 acre Galisteo Basin Preserve in Santa Fe County, is the flagship initiative of Commonweal Conservancy, a conservation-based community development nonprofit. The Galisteo Basin Preserve is designed to be the nucleus of a larger conservation district that will include 50,000+ acres of public and private land. This initiative aspires to protect threatened wildlife corridors and critical habitat areas in an eco-reserve. It is also designed to engage community members in the protection and restoration of wild nature as a matter of community health.

Great Plains Restoration Council and WildEarth Guardians join Commonwealth Conservancy as key partners in this re-wilding effort that will also guard against developmental fragmentation of the Galisteo plain.

The Galisteo Basin Preserve • Santa Fe County, New Mexico Ecological Conditions:

The Galisteo Basin Preserve has a rich ecological and cultural history. Ranging from 6,600 to 6,300 feet in elevation, the sweeping plain between the Sandia and Sangre de Cristo mountains serves as a vital connector corridor for all kinds of native wildlife, from black bears and mule deer to pronghorn antelope. Continuing south/southeast into the wide-open Great Plains and the legendary Llano Estacado, the Galisteo Basin opens like a cove into the sea.

Due to centuries of livestock Female pronghorn and cholla cactus overgrazing, the blue grama shortgrass prairie-dominated ecosystem has been heavily invaded by woody increasers like one-seed juniper and cholla cactus. Before settlement, the grassland used to be wide-open and clean, sweeping from horizon to horizon in a golden-green band of life beneath soaring blue skies; now the over-abundance of junipers has harmed the soil’s Evidence of juniper overgrowth which causes the pronghorn to struggle. ability to hold water, and chokes off the grassland’s full potential as habitat for wildlife. According to an Oregon State University study, “A 4-foot-tall juniper that is 12 inches in diameter can consume 25 to 35 gallons a day. The juniper … capture[s] water up to 40 feet from the trunk in all directions through a network of small roots several inches below the ground. … If there are nine to 30 junipers an acre, in theory they could use all the water delivered as rain and snow. A juniper’s canopy is [also] very efficient at capturing snow. … Grass production could increase three to nine times without junipers, allowing the soil to retain more water.”

Perennial surface water existed in the Galisteo Basin into the 1970s, when years of logging in the upper forested slopes of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, added to ongoing grassland degradation, caused the streams to dry up and the water table to drop. The Galisteo River, a tributary of the northern , is dry most of the year. A few small seeps and springs still exist. Fortunately, the Preserve has few non-native invasive species.

Tano (or Southern ) people inhabited the Galisteo Basin for centuries before the arrival of the Spanish, and in this harsh but beautiful landscape of grass, drought, winds and sudden storms, became ultra-sensitively attuned to “understanding “the land as a sponge” [which] allowed Pueblos to enhance water resources “for the benefit of all flora and fauna”, which in turn benefited the people.” [Lucy Lippard; Down Country, The Tano of the Galisteo Basin; 2010].” Petroglyphs and archaeological sites that testify to the Tano’s understanding of the cosmos, from micro-climates to the water molecule to astronomy, abound throughout the Preserve.

As European settlement progressed, Native people succumbed. And by 1876, no wild bison could be found alive in New Mexico. All prairie dogs on Southern Tewa (Tano) petrogyph the Galisteo Basin were eradicated over the last 100 years. The Galisteo Basin was prime habitat for Gunnison’s prairie dogs, which live at higher elevations at the edge of the Southern Great Plains and westward, as well as provided limited habitat at lower elevations for black-tailed prairie dogs, which once thrived throughout the short and mixed grass prairies of the American Great Plains. Both Gunnison’s and black-tailed prairie dogs meet all 5 criteria for listing under the Endangered Species Act, but due to political pressure have not been afforded any formal protections. Private preservation initiatives currently shoulder nearly the entire effort.

On the Galisteo Basin Preserve, a herd of free-roaming pronghorn “antelope” remains, though they struggle with the juniper overgrowth because they, like prairie dogs, are dependent on wide-open, long sight line grassland. The Good News:

The Galisteo Basin Preserve established by the Commonweal Conservancy is the centerpiece of an ambitious landscape-scale conservation vision. It serves as a springboard with which to protect, restore and connect wild ecosystems throughout the larger 340,000-acre hydrological basin.

The first of three planned Gunnison’s prairie dog towns has been successfully established through careful reintroduction techniques, and over 300 wild Gunnison’s prairie dogs now thrive on the edge of the Southern Crescent portion of the Preserve. Prairie dogs are remarkable in how their presence brings life back to the plains like a wellspring. Over 160 different kinds of native wildlife are attracted to and thrive in prairie dog towns, much like marine wildlife uses coral reefs. Prairie dog colony monitoring participants have documented the reintroduction site as “coming to life with birds, reptiles, and land mammals”.

In restoring and healing native prairies, Great Plains Restoration Council applies Jarid Manos, Founder and CEO of GPRC, an Ecological Health curriculum that releasing rescued Gunnison’s prairie dog helps people heal and strengthen themselves into first of three new prairie dog towns to through healing the land. Learning both be constructed on the Preserve. life (soft) and technical (hard) skills, participants from GPRC programs Plains Youth InterACTION™ and Restoration Not Incarceration™, as well Your Health Outdoors™ (the latter which serves the general public) all gain a deeper understanding of how the body and the Earth function interdependently in Plains Youth InterACTION™ and Your Health Outdoors™ are two of three GPRC programs a state of health or “dis-ease”. Temporary green jobs, in the form of paid, life that connect people with wild nature as a experience, nature-based work therapy scholarships, will be offered as transitional matter of our own health. opportunities for young adult ex-offenders in New Mexico and nationwide. All three programs foster positive cultural interaction as well.

2013 through 2015 three-year work plan:

Juniper and cholla removal, prairie dog town construction, grasslands renewal, erosion control, wetlands rejuvenation, watershed enhancement and other habitat improvements, and youth work, public education, advocacy, visitor experiences, and temporary green jobs for young adults all lead the way to the first small-scale bison reintroduction.

The Galisteo Basin Preserve offers a sunlit opportunity to build “a thousand year preserve of patience and good hard work”, serving as a national model of new millennial vitality, climate change resilience, and people working together to take care of the Earth and our children’s health and future. Looking east, it literally opens the door into further wildland protection and restoration of the Southern Great Plains. Immense potential beckons.

There are moments when walking out on the northern rim of the Preserve, with the silhouetting in twilight to the southwest and the Sangres shadowing first starlight to the northeast, where you might imagine your feet Paula Martin, Grasslands Wildlife Coordinator, in the grassy dirt of the 1400s or a thousand years from now. In a land that has assisting with land prep and cholla removal quietly buried its ancient past beneath new grass and hidden stories, eyes still dart on future site of second Gunnison’s prairie among unknown sorrows and exuberant moments forward, and your life may be a dog town, which is being constructed on the northern rim of the Preserve. continuum, a connector if you will, between the time ago and a spring’s rebirth. Galisteo Basin Preserve Map

The 13,522-acre Galisteo Basin Preserve includes vast protected open space, miles of public trails, and a range of private conservation properties. In combination with approximately 9,800 acres of adjoining federal, state, and Santa Fe County public lands, it helps create a regional open space area of more than 22,000 acres.

Regional Map

Located in a spectacularly scenic region in north-central New Mexico known as the Galisteo Basin, the Galisteo Basin Preserve is framed by the to the southwest, the Cerrillos Hills to the west, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the northeast, and the Jemez Mountains to the northwest. The Preserve is located 15 miles south of Santa Fe and approximately 20 minutes from its commercial and cultural center via US Highway 285. It is roughly 45 miles (a 60-minute drive) from Albuquerque via Interstate 40 and County Road 41.

Maps courtesy of Commonweal Conservancy www.galisteobasinpreserve.com Great Plains Restoration Council crew constructing a new starter prairie dog town in advance of reintroduction of endangered Gunnison’s prairie dogs on the Galisteo Basin Preserve, Santa Fe County, New Mexico. This constructed reintroduction system has been developed and designed by biologists to aid maximum survival rate of reintroduced wild prairie dogs, who are highly sensitive.

City of Santa Fe, New Mexico

Great Plains Restoration Council

Great Plains Restoration Council • PO Box 131291, Houston, TX 77219 • www.GPRC.org • 832-598-GPRC (4772)