Working Ranch Magazine January/February 2025

Existing claims would be grandfa thered in, she said. “But aside from that, all other uses stay the same.” On private land that would fall within the proposed boundary, she said ranchers could make improve ments on their own property and roads. “But sometimes there is more red tape to expand a road, or to make more lanes, and stuff like that.” Reyes said she understands ranch ers’ concerns and there have been a lot of good questions. “I know that since it’s so early in the process, they hav en’t been able to get all the answers they would like, but there’s been a continuing dialog. I would just stress… the boundaries aren’t completely fixed. It’s still so early in the process that people have even considered chang ing the boundaries to preserve mining since rockhounding is such an import ant thing in the community.” According to Reyes, the timeline for establishing the Mimbres Peaks National Monument isn’t clear. “Most national monuments that have been proposed have, on average, taken five-plus years.” WHAT THE OPPONENTS SAY “From the get-go of it, we caught wind just through the rumor mill that this proposed monument was being talked about and there was going to be some kind of press (conference) deal,” JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2025 I 73

According to an economic study conducted by BBC Research and Consulting and released by the Las Cruces Green Chamber of

Commerce, “New non-local visitors to the national monument would directly spend about $10.2 million per year under the medium visitation scenario ($7.3 and $13.1 million, respectively, under the low and high visitation sce narios) per year on goods and services, creating 88 new jobs under the medium visitation scenario (64 to 113 new jobs, respectively, under the low and high visitation scenarios) in tourism and rec reation-facing sectors like accommoda tions, food service, and retail sales.” When it comes to ranching, Reyes points to the Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks. “So, as an example, for the Organ Mountains in terms of ranching, it stayed the same for how many acres and land they have for it. I know that the number of permittees that have applied has increased since it became a monument. But even with or without the increase, the number of available land has stayed the same in all of their alternatives,” she said. The alternatives come from BLM’s recently released management plan for the Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks. “The only other area that’s multi-use that’s negatively impacted is mining.” That applies to new mining claims.

where BLM prioritizes diverse and multiple uses. So, having some of these staff people is important, and also the type of land designation puts the land in a higher place when it comes to federal funding,” Reyes said. Then there’s the land itself. “As a state, we have the second most native mammal species, we have the fourth most plant diversity in the country, as well as having along the border area, a lot of migratory paths, especially for birds and some small to medium and a few large mammals as well,” she said, speaking on behalf of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club rather than the Protect Mimbres Peaks coalition. “And so, since there are already two other monuments not too far away, this would essentially be one of the first monument corridors in the country, which would bring even more tourism.” Increased tourism is among the benefits touted as a reason to desig nate the new monument. Citing the Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks, which has been a national monument for around 10 years, Reyes said there has been a 300% increase in visitation, using counters at the visitor center and cell phone data to record visits.