Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Because roads have been shown to contribute significantly to soil impacts, water quality impacts, and increased human fire ignitions, maintaining approved road densities is critical for forest restoration efforts to be complete and effective.1 Wildfire frequency and seasonality are related to road density; Noss (1995) cites several studies demonstrating that 78% of human-caused fires occur within 265 feet of a road.

Also because fuel breaks around communities based on existing landscape features such as roads can serve as defensible space preventing crown fire from traveling off of and onto federal lands, strategic thinning along roads considered necessary for management and identified as strategic in protecting communities are critical in fire protection.

We propose to collaborate with the Coyote Ranger District of the Santa Fe National Forest, which supports the highest road densities of any forest in the Southwest Region (See R3 75 species BA), local fire departments, the Acequia Mesa del Medio Association and Rocky Mountain Youth Corps to decommission or obliterate roads that are not necessary for management of the District’s resources or maintaining traditional uses and bring the Ranger District into compliance with the management plan’s road density standards. We also propose to strategically identify roads and natural features where conservative thinning would prevent crown fire from moving on or off of federal lands. We would bring in the Acequia Mesa del Medio Association as well as community groups from northern New Mexico to train youth and under-employed citizens in heavy equipment operations as well as road and revegetation survey techniques.

Read the Project Proposal(PDF) 3/14/05