SUN Staff Report
5/14/09
Under a new bill pending in Washington, D.C., a large swath of public land straddling Rio Arriba and Taos counties would be designated as a conservation area, with two new wilderness areas carved out nearby.
According to the Bureau of Land Management, the main difference between wilderness areas and conservation areas is access.
Travel in wilderness areas is essentially restricted to foot power alone. Designated wilderness can have no permanent or temporary roads, no mechanical transport of any kind (including bicycles) and no buildings. That’s because wilderness is managed with solitude and natural protection as the goal — it should be a place “untrammeled by man,” according to the 1964 law that authorized wilderness creation.
Nothing in that law, however, prohibits regulated grazing, fishing or hunting, and mineral leases that predate the wilderness law are still honored by the government.
Conservation areas have looser restrictions, and generally allow some vehicle use.
The only conservation areas currently designated in New Mexico are the El Malpais National Conservation Area and the Fort Stanton-Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area.
The Bureau currently manages five of the 25 wilderness areas in New Mexico: the Cebolla, West Malpais, Bisti/De-Na-Zin, Ojito and Sabinoso.