Working Ranch Magazine January/February 2025

Southern New Mexico said Russell Johnson, a fourth-gen eration rancher in the area. “None of the ranchers that would be impacted by this monument were invited to it. We reached out to our state senator and state representative. None of them knew about it.” Johnson serves on the state board for the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau and is president of the Luna County Farm Bureau. Luna County is where the proposed national monument will be located. “None of them knew about it.” Since then, there have been a few meetings to discuss the proposed monument. “There were several county commission meetings that dis cussed this and several City Hall meet ings that discussed it. The city and the county, the City of Deming and Luna County, all passed resolutions oppos ing this. And then, the only other municipality within Luna County is the Village of Columbus. They also passed a resolution to oppose this.” Beyond that, he said several coun ties scattered across the state have joined Luna County in opposing the Mimbres Peaks National Monument. They are Hildago County, Lee County, Otero County, Union County, Sierra County, and Chaves County. “We started a grassroots movement through the Luna County Farm and Livestock Bureau called No Mimbres Monument. And we’ve got a Facebook page and a website. And the proponents, they’ve got a Facebook page and a web site and that’s pretty much the only way that they’ve engaged the public on the matter, is just through social media.” The concern by ranchers is the proponents have not engaged the community and the stakeholders who will be impacted, he said. For some ranches, the entire operation is within the proposed boundary. “And then, in our case, about half of our ranch is within the monument.” Johnson said that proponents point to the Organ Mountains-Desert Peak

Social Media page of the group advocating for a 245,000 acre national monument that will be comprised of four large areas surrounding Deming, NM.

National Monument as an example of how grazing hasn’t been impacted. “My argument there is, even though it’s been designated for over 10 years… they still haven’t developed a resource management plan for that monument.” The resource management plan dictates how resources will be man aged within the monument. “That’s where you’re going to start seeing the effects on landowners, and par ticularly stakeholders like ranchers. Because (that’s where) you really get into the guts of the rules and regula tions of a monument,” he said. That’s another point of concern. “We went to one of the meetings (about developing the resource management plan for the Organ Mountains-Desert Peak National Monument) and they told us usually these resource man agement plans take years to develop, which we’re already in year 10, but it seems like up until recently, they finally got serious about developing a resource management plan, but they’re trying to fast-track it and get something in place by the end of the year. And even the BLM was telling us that’s kind of not the norm.” Then, of course, there’s the con cern about being able to continue grazing cattle on federal land within the proposed monument. Johnson points to the Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona where he said that the grazing leases on the southern portion of the monument didn’t renew. “And then, to date on the northern portion where there’s still grazing, (environmental groups) have brought two or three lawsuits against the BLM basically to try to get the BLM to elim inate grazing on the remainder of the monument. So that’s a concern to us.

Will our leases be renewed? Will graz ing be eliminated right off the bat?” He gives a nod to statements by the proponents that grazing will remain the same. “But our issue is, you can eliminate grazing from the landscape without saying that you’re going to eliminate grazing. And by that, I mean if you start changing the way we can manage this land in the sense of maintaining improvements with equipment versus doing it by hand or not being able to install new improve ments. If a well goes dry, are we going to be able to get equipment in there to drill a new well, things of that nature?” In Johnson’s mind, establishing the Mimbres Peaks National Monument doesn’t make sense. “The BLM’s already managing it anyway. And I look at it as we’ve got a pretty good working relationship with the federal government through BLM and we’re doing a pretty good job of manag ing these lands as it is. And there’s really no advantage to designating it a national monument.” FOR MORE INFORMATION Protect Mimbres Peaks: www.pro tectmimbrespeaks.org No Mimbres Monument: www. nomimbresmonument.org Organ Mountains-Desert Peak resource management plan: https:// eplanning.blm.gov/public_proj ects/92170/200212669/201075 74/251007574OrganMountains DesertPeaks%20Natl%20Monument_ DEIS%20RMP_20240404_508.pdf Economic Analysis: https://pro tectmimbrespeaks.org/wp-content/ uploads/2023/12/MPNM-Economic Impact-Report-Nov-29-2023 FINAL-V2.pdf

74 I JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2025 WORKING RANCH audited readers run 21 million head of beef cattle.