SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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51–104 CC
1998
FOREST SERVICE MANAGEMENT OF THE NATIONAL FORESTS IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO
FIELD HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOREST AND FOREST HEALTH
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
AUGUST 15, 1998, ESPAÑOLA, NEW MEXICO
Serial No. 105–107
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house
or
Committee address: http://www.house.gov/resources
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
KEN CALVERT, California
RICHARD W. POMBO, California
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho
LINDA SMITH, Washington
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Carolina
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WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas
JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona
JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada
ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania
RICK HILL, Montana
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada
MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho
GEORGE MILLER, California
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELÓ, Puerto Rico
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MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
SAM FARR, California
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ADAM SMITH, Washington
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin Islands
RON KIND, Wisconsin
LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
LLOYD A. JONES, Chief of Staff
ELIZABETH MEGGINSON, Chief Counsel
CHRISTINE KENNEDY, Chief Clerk/Administrator
JOHN LAWRENCE, Democratic Staff Director
Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho, Chairman
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania
RICK HILL, Montana
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado
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MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, Am. Samoa
————— —————
————— —————
DOUG CRANDALL, Staff Director
ANNE HEISSENBUTTEL, Legislative Staff
JEFF PETRICH, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
Hearing held August 15, 1998
Statements of Members:
Chenoweth, Hon. Helen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Idaho
Prepared statement of
Redmond, Hon. Bill, a Representative in Congress from the State of New Mexico
Statements of witnesses:
Allen, Sylvia, Arizona-New Mexico Field Director, People for the USA
Bandy, Paul
Braden, Dennis
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Chacon, Charlie,
Chacon, Claudio
Chacon, Gerald, District Director, Permittee, Cooperative Extension Service, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Prepared statement of
Cisneros, Porfirio
Cordova, David
Cordova, Max, President, Truchas Land Grant Association, Chimayo, New Mexico
Cowan, Caren, Executive Secretary, New Mexico Cattle Growers, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Prepared statement of
De Vargas, Ike, La Madera, New Mexico
Prepared statement of
Eppers, Bud
Estrada, Gabe, Rancher, Las Vegas, New Mexico
Hall, Jimmie, President, Production Credit Association of New Mexico
Horning, John, Executive Director, Forest Guardians, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Klinekole, Bruce, Mescalero Apache Cattle Growers Association, Mescalero, New Mexico
Prepared statement of
Luce, Robert, General Counsel, Rio Grande Forest Products, Inc., Española, New Mexico
Prepared statement of
Lucero, Richard, Mayor, Española, New Mexico
Martinez, Palemon, Secretary, Northern New Mexico Stockmen's Association
Prepared statement of
Moore, William
Morales, Moises
Posey, R. C.
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Reed, Warren
Sanchez, David
Sanford, Brian
Smith, Carl
Torrez, Ernest
Vigil, Jake M., Tres Piedras Carson National Forest District, El Rito, New Mexico
Prepared statement of
Wright, Bill
Additional material supplied:
Estrada, Gabriel and Ray Crespin, Beaver Allotment Permittees, prepared statement of
HEARING ON FOREST SERVICE MANAGEMENT OF THE NATIONAL FORESTS IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO
AUGUST 15, 1998
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health,
Committee on Resources,
Española, New Mexico
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 p.m. in the Mission de San Gabriel, Number One Calle de los Españolas, Española, New Mexico, Hon. Helen Chenoweth (chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD LUCERO, MAYOR, ESPAÑOLA, NEW MEXICO
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Mr. LUCERO. Good afternoon. I think this is too loud. I will try not to use it.
In northern New Mexico, bienvenidos. Mi casa es tu casa. Welcome to our northern New Mexico. Our home is your home.
This is an official hearing before the Subcommittee of Congress for Forest and Forest Health before Chairwoman Helen Chenoweth and Congressman Redmond of New Mexico.
I am the mayor of the city of Española, and I want to welcome all of you to our city, welcome you to this building, and I want to tell you a little bit about it. This building was built to commemorate 200 years of two cultures meeting 400 years ago at the junction of the Rio Grande and the Chama River here in the Española Valley, a continuance of 400 years of these two cultures and other cultures living and working together in these valleys of Northern New Mexico.
If we study history, and we should, for whoever doesn't know his past never has a future, and that is what we are here to talk about, that past and that future, 400 years ago settlers, colonizers, came to these valleys of northern New Mexico because of what they had been told by many other explorers that had come prior to them about the very beautiful valleys of northern New Mexico; about the beautiful small and large rivers of these northern New Mexico valleys; of the beautiful people that lived here; and of the beautiful forests that they had here to make their living.
So a group of colonizers come up the Rio Grande from Zacatecas, Mexico, in what is now known as the Camino Real, the Royal Highway, from that point to here, to San Juan Pueblo. If we would have been here to greet them, we would have seen them bringing up cattle and sheep and goats and oxen. They brought them to share with the pueblo people of these valleys and to make their living from these domestic animals. If we would have been here a little longer, we would have seen them sharing with the pueblo people the many things that we have shared together for these 400 years.
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And we would have gone with them to the forest, and we would have cut wood to bring it down here to keep warm in the winter and to make our living. And we would have surely learned the many herbs, the many plants in those forests that we still bring down today as remedies for us. As a matter of fact, I took some this morning.
So, therefore, today we have a lot to talk about and so little time to say it. But we thank Mrs. Chenoweth for her stand on the importance of the Forest Service continuing to serve the people and not to lock them up.
[Applause.]
Mr. LUCERO. For if the Congress of the United States was to lock up the forests and the many grazing lands of New Mexico, then you don't just take away from us a way in which to make our living today, but you would take away from us history, culture, a way of life of two great cultures that have lived together here for over 400 years. And we will not tolerate nor give up those rights that we have to our natural forests, to our land that has been ours for these 400 years.
[Applause.]
Mr. LUCERO. And the territory of New Mexico, which composed in those years a little bit of Texas, a little of Colorado, a little of Utah, all of Arizona, all of New Mexico, part of Nevada, part of California, made the territory of New Mexico, and from this territory of 400 years we have survived many, many parts of this Nation's history.
And the people of this territory of New Mexico have served in all of the wars of the United States of America beginning with the Revolutionary War, and we are proud of that. And why does anybody have the right, after we have fought for it so long, to take it away from us now? It is not right. It is not proper.
[Applause.]
Mr. LUCERO. My grandfather took me to the forest many times with the sheep, and there we shared not just the fact that we took sheep to the forest, but we shared a camaraderie that has lived and will live with me forever. Who has the right to take that away from their sons? Who has the right to take that away from the grandfather that wants to give it to his grandsons and grandchildren? That is not right, it can never happen.
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So, therefore, we have for 400 years made our life from these lands that were ours originally and the pueblo people of New Mexico. We must always demand that they be ours so that we can go to the forest. We can go for many reasons to make our livelihood in logging, to bring our wood for the winter, pick pinon as we have for many centuries, and—I will tell you a good one now—and go pick Chimaha. And if anybody wants to know what Chimaha is, let me know, and I will tell you after the meeting.
But this is what we share, and this monument is to that history, and it will stand solid demanding that this history will never be taken away from us, and that this history will continue for many centuries to come.
[Applause.]
Mr. LUCERO. So with those opening remarks, could we stand and pledge allegiance to the flag.
[Pledge of Allegiance.]
Mr. LUCERO. Last night on his way back from Albuquerque, one of our great judges of New Mexico was killed in an auto accident, Steve Herrera, and I would like to ask you for a moment of silence in his memory.
[Moment of silence.]
Mr. LUCERO. And so we come to the moment that many of us have been looking forward to for a long time, to be able to present to a lady, a very, very beautiful and important lady in the Congress of the United States, who chairs this Subcommittee, that I have a great honor to introduce her to you and present her to you, Congresswoman, the Chairperson of the Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health. It is an honor to introduce to you Helen Chenoweth.
[Applause.]
STATEMENT OF HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you. Believe me, it is my honor to be with you today in this reproduction of this very historic building. I have a sense of spirit of Americanism here that I rarely sense, and it is indeed a special honor for me to be able to join you today.
So with that, we will just start the business right now. The Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health will now come to order.
The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on Forest Service management of national forests in northern New Mexico. Under rule 4(G) of the Committee rules, any oral opening statements at hearings are usually limited to the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, and this will allow us to get to you sooner.
I do want to depart from the usual custom, though, and I yield to Congressman Redmond. I don't think there will be any objection.
I am Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth from Idaho, and today's hearing will focus on Forest Service Management of the National Forests here in northern New Mexico. The Subcommittee is here today at the request of Congressman Bill Redmond. He is aware of my commitment to see that the Forest Service manages the National Forest properly and of my deep interest in listening to constituents who are affected by Forest Service policies.
We are here today to learn firsthand from ranchers, loggers and other Forest Service land users about the challenges they face on a daily basis. The ''one size fits all'' approach to legislating does not take into account the unique cultural and natural characteristics of this area, those characteristics that we just heard about in such poignant terms. Today's testimony will help respond to these unique challenges facing this area as we deal with forestry, grazing and endangered species legislation in the future.
In reading about northern New Mexico and talking to Bill Redmond, I am fascinated that many people in this area ranch on land which originated with land grants that are 400 years old. For my own curiosity, I would like a show of hands of those in the audience who are heirs to Mexican or Spanish land grants. Would you please hold up your hands?
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[Audience members raise hands.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. My goodness. Very interesting. It seems very obvious to me that people who have been good stewards of property for over 400 years have a great deal to teach the Federal Government about land management.
I also understand that many citizens in this area do not have access to natural gas and heat and cook in their homes with firewood. I would like a show of hands of everyone in the audience that heats their homes or cooks with firewood.
[Audience members raise hands.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. My goodness. Very interesting.
At today's hearing I am particularly interested in learning more about how the endangered species status listing of the Mexican spotted owl has affected residents of this area. Also, I hope to learn more about the process by which the Forest Service settled lawsuits by radical environmentalists outside the courtroom. And it is of particular interest to me, were ranchers and loggers involved in the negotiations? What impact have these settlements had on public land users and on local communities?
Today's hearings will consist of two panels. Each witness will be given 5 minutes to give your testimony, and Congressman Redmond will explain the way we work the mikes here. Questioning will begin after everyone on the panel has completed their testimony.
After our two panels have finished, the Subcommittee will begin an open microphone session. Everyone who is interested in speaking at these sessions should sign in on the sheet located in the back of the room. Speakers will be allotted 2 minutes during this session.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Chenoweth follos:]
STATEMENT OF HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
Good Afternoon. I am Congressman Helen Chenoweth from Idaho. Today's hearing will focus on Forest Service management of the National Forests here in Northern New Mexico. The Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health is here today at the request of Congressman Bill Redmond. He is aware of my commitment to see that the Forest Service manages the national forests properly and of my deep interest in listening to constituents who are affected by Forest Service policies. We are here today to learn, first-hand, from ranchers, loggers and other Forest Service land-users about the challenges they face on a daily basis. The ''one size fits all'' approach to legislating does not take into account the unique cultural and natural characteristics of this area. Today's testimony will help respond to the unique challenges facing this area as we deal with forestry, grazing and endangered species legislation in the future.
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In reading about northern New Mexico and talking to Bill Redmond, I am fascinated that many people in this area ranch on land which originated with land grants that are 400 hundred years old. For my own curiosity, I would like a show of hands of those in the audience who are heirs to Mexican and Spanish land grants.
It seems so obvious to me that people who have been good stewards of property for 400 years have a great deal to teach the Federal Government about land management.
I also understand that many citizens in this area do not have access to natural gas and heat and cook in their homes with firewood. I would like a show of hands of everyone in the audience that heats their home or cooks with firewood.
At today's hearing I am particularly interested in learning more about how the endangered species status listing of the Mexican Spotted Owl has affected residents of this area. Also, I hope to learn more about the process by which the Forest Service settled lawsuits by radical environmentalists outside the courtroom. Were ranchers and loggers involved in these negotiations? What impacts have these settlements had on public land users and local communities?
Today's hearing will consist of two panels. Each witness will be given five minutes to give your testimony. Questioning will begin after everyone on the panel has completed their testimony.
After our two panels have finished, the Subcommittee will begin an open microphone session. Everyone who is interested in speaking at this session should sign-in on the sheet located in the back of the room. Speakers will be allotted two minutes during this session.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I now yield to your Congressman Bill Redmond for his opening statement.
[Applause.]
STATEMENT OF HON. BILL REDMOND, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO
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Mr. REDMOND. Thank you, Congresswoman Chenoweth, for coming to New Mexico today, northern New Mexico, and I want to thank you, Mayor Richard Lucero, for being such a gracious host. I don't think there is another person in all of northern New Mexico who is as gracious as Mayor Lucero. Let's give him a round of applause.
[Applause.]
Mr. REDMOND. Two years ago we lost about 30,000 acres in the Jemez Mountains with the Dome fire, and most recently, just a couple of months ago, just weeks ago, we lost thousands of acres again in the Jemez Forest, a fire endangering the watershed for Santa Clara Pueblo, which is right up the road, and it is very obvious to everyone, and it is evidence to all, that it is time that we come to the table to discuss the futures of our forests as they relate to the community.
I believe the quality of life in the forest is directly linked to the quality of life in the community, and I believe we should look at our past to see how we have been stewards of the forests in northern New Mexico and leave the management of the forest to the continuation of our culture in northern New Mexico.
I believe that we should be very supportive of la tierra, and so the purpose of this is to hear from as many people as possible as to what suggested direction we take for the health of our forest, and without further ado I want to explain to you the light system.
Here on the table in front of me right at Max Cordova's left hand—this is a demon that was invented in Washington, DC. It looks like a traffic light, and that is exactly what it is. Since this is an official hearing, we have to abide by the Rules of the House of Representatives. We can't bend the rules out here in the field. So instead of flying you all to Washington, I believe Washington should come to you, and this is what we have done.
[Applause.]
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Mr. REDMOND. So the protocol is as each of you are giving your testimony, while the light is green, you can keep talking and feel very comfortable that you have ample time left. As soon as the light turns yellow, you have 60 seconds to complete your testimony, and then when the light turns red, Erik from my office will come and yank you out of the chair and kick you out the front door. So since some of you know Erik, you don't want that to happen. But the red light means that officially you cannot continue to speak.
And then afterwards we will have an open microphone, but for the official testimony part, we do have to go according to the rules of the green, yellow and red lights. OK, thank you.
[The information referred to may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Congressman.
I would now like to introduce our first panel: Ike de Vargas from La Madera, New Mexico; Max Cordova, president of Truchas Land Grant Association, from Chimayo, New Mexico; Gerald Chacon, district director and permittee, Cooperative Extension Service, from Santa Fe, New Mexico; Rob Luce, general counsel, Rio Grande Forest Products, from Española, New Mexico; and Bruce Klinekole, Mescalero Apache Cattle Growers Association, from Mescalero, New Mexico. Welcome, everyone.
As explained in our first hearing, it is the intention of the Chair to put all outside witnesses under oath. This is a formality of the Committee that is meant to ensure open and honest discussion and should not affect the testimony given by the witnesses. I believe that all of the witnesses were informed of this procedure before the hearing today, and they have each been provided a copy of the Committee rules.
And so if you will all stand with me and raise your right hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Now we will begin with Mr. De Vargas.
STATEMENT OF IKE DE VARGAS, LA MADERA, NEW MEXICO
Mr. DE VARGAS. Thank you, Chairwoman Chenoweth. Thank you, Congressman Redmond. I am very happy to be here and be able to testify before this Committee. I am particularly thankful to Congressman Redmond's position that Washington should come out to the people. I guess it doesn't surprise me a bit, because during the period of time when we were litigating over the amount of timber sale and the units, Congressman Redmond went over there to some of our property, and he looked at the forest and saw what we were talking about. So thank you very much for that Congressman.
I am a member of a small logging and milling outfit out of Villacito. The Villacito is a tract of land that was created by Congress under the state yield forest land grant back in 1944. The unit itself was created by the Secretary of the Interior in 1947.
Ostensibly it was to benefit the local people by providing the continuous and steady flow of timber products. We in 1994 formed our co-ops and decided to start working in other areas and try to help our local economy. We had a lot of problems with the Forest Service from the outset. There was a great deal of resistance to a small company getting a toll booth in our area, and so we did it anyway. It was difficult.
The way we got our financing was that the Forest Service promised us in a written letter that we would have 50 years at least of timber. That was marketable and bankable for banks. So shortly thereafter we got shut down, and we were unable to work for a considerable amount of time. Needless to say we had already been loaned the money. We already had a debt load we had to deliver. It was extremely difficult given that us rural people were not wealthy and just working out of guts basically.
The way the Endangered Species Act—specifically the spotted owl, the Mexican spotted owl thing was especially wrangling to us because we knew there were no animals of that nature here. They hadn't been here historically. In fact, a study was made in the 1830's that lasted 7 years in which in the northern part of New Mexico only five spotted owls were sighted. They were not even sighted, there were three sighted. One of them was killed to study by biologists, and none have been seen since.
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So we were very perplexed that the entire region, entire area, would be designated as critical habitat for the spotted owl. It didn't seem appropriate because, if we are going to set aside habitat for nonexistent owls, then we can set aside land for anything, elephants maybe or tigers. Any endangered species could probably be introduced in here, and if it doesn't get designation of critical habitat, it is going to be done arbitrarily and capriciously.
We have situations where the courts have ruled that the Forest Service cannot proceed to enforce agreements with the environment groups. They do it anyway. The Forest Service has not been a good neighbor to northern New Mexico for a long time. It is just recently that they have been starting to think about working with us as a result of the controversy regarding the land management years. The people are extremely resentful.
I would like to make one comment. There was a newspaper article in which some Congressman wrote requesting to find out from the Forest Service who was involved in environmental groups being referred to as a McCarthy Act. The environmental groups have ostracized other environmentalists that have had the temerity to stand up for the community, and there are quite a few of them.
It is amazing how bad a rap the entire environmental community has gotten because of a few fringe groups that insist on imposing their agenda on a people that have lived on the land for so long and for so long to be proven to be good stewards of that land.
[Applause.]
Mr. DE VARGAS. Having said that, I would just like to say one more thing to Congressman Redmond. Thank you very much for taking a serious look at the land grant question. That land grant question is a question of justice for the people of northern New Mexico. Thank you very much.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. De Vargas. The time goes so fast. We'll be back to you asking questions though.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. De Vargas may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Max Cordova.
STATEMENT OF MAX CORDOVA, PRESIDENT, TRUCHAS LAND GRANT ASSOCIATION, CHIMAYO, NEW MEXICO
Mr. CORDOVA. Madam Chairwoman, Congressman Bill Redmond, thank you very much for the opportunity to come and speak to you as a public witness here. I am Max Cordova of the Truchas Land Grant in Truchas, New Mexico. Our land grant was given to us by the Government of Spain in 1754, the Government of New Mexico in 1829, and most recently the Government of the United States in 1892.
This land grant and others were guaranteed under the Treaty of Guadalupe de Hidalgo. Problems we are facing today is that most of our successful land is now under Forest Service management. Our right to this land is—I have documented in a paper that is documented in archive paper 771 that goes back to March of 1754. That paper speaks of us having access to public land and to the forests and to the water.
In 1998, we are still very forest-dependent. Some of the problems that we are facing today are unemployment; diminished access to Forest Service land for fishing, for grazing for hunting, personal use, building materials and firewood.
One of the biggest problems we are facing is poverty in the area. Because of the poverty that we have in the area, it is my belief that the Forest Service must walk hand in hand with us in any policy they undertake.
The uniqueness of our land and our people is clearly captured in the Region III policy for managing lands in northern New Mexico. Sadly to say, this policy has yet to be implemented in northern New Mexico.
The Mexican spotted owl, the Forest Service management policies are having a serious affect on the health and welfare of our communities.
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In 1995, an 18-month injunction was—we went through an 18-month injunction as a result of a lawsuit against the Forest Service for firewood that we needed to cook our food and to heat our homes. To add insult to injury, an agreement was reached by these two entities, an agreement that left us out completely of the agreement.
It is our belief that any plan that the Forest Service brings should consider traditional and historical uses, because the people have many ties to the land.
The unwillingness of the Forest Service to implement these grants are happening because of the fear of lawsuits by environmental groups. This is seriously hurting forest restoration of our communities.
The Endangered Species Act, it is our opinion, also needs to be revisited, not with the idea to weaken the Act, but to strengthen the Act. Too often land-based communities are victims of well-intentioned policies that fail to use them as part of the ecosystem.
Second, science. Science needs to be applied to the Forest Service. Right now the biggest thing that is recommended is lighting a match to it. Is this really the best that we can come up with as we restore the Forest Service lands?
In closing I would like to say that I would like to bring the land grant issue into focus, because we are being blamed for many wrongs in New Mexico by the Forest Service. Recently a Forest Service supervisor from Santa Fe National Forest pointed out in a national syndicated column that three forest service ranger stations and many Forest Service signs have been burned or bombed. In the same breath, he seemed to infer that land grant people were responsible for these cowardly acts.
Although I admit to you that the actions of the Forest Service to take away Forest Service resources from the people has caused much dissent in northern New Mexico, but I believe that we all want the same thing: Healthy forests, clean and abundant water, and viable rural economies, and the fuel to heat our homes and to continue to service.
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Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cordova may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Gerald Chacon.
STATEMENT OF GERALD CHACON, DISTRICT DIRECTOR, PERMITTEE, COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE, SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
Mr. CHACON. Thank you, Representative Chenoweth. Welcome to New Mexico.
This year marked the 400th anniversary of livestock production in northern New Mexico. My own family has continuously raised livestock on our private and surrounding lands for at least the last 168 years that we are aware of.
Each of you must clearly understand, and I am sure you are very well aware, that most of the Carson National Forest and the Santa Fe National Forest were all part of Spanish and Mexican land grants. Our people have always been land-based livestock producers with a successful history of livestock production going back to ancestral Spain. Look on any Forest Service map in northern New Mexico, and nearly every mountain, stream, and spring and pasture are Spanish names and places.
Today, as in our past, we have a proud history of serving the community and working with government, even when that same governance took community lands for the establishment of public domain. Still today title to much of the forest land is not clear.
There are currently just over 2,000 families grazing on U.S. forest and BLM land in northern New Mexico. These permittees run on the average of less than 50 head. Eighty-seven percent of these families are Hispanic. There are 327 families using public land for grazing in Rio Arriba County alone.
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These public lands sustain 60 percent of these ranchers' livestock forage needs each year. Total gross receipts from all livestock in this county range between $7.8 and $14.7 million. This industry is very significant for a county whose population already has a 10.7 percent unemployment rate and where 23.5 percent of the families live below the national poverty level.
There are 3.5 million total acres in this county, with 1.3 million U.S. Forest Service land, 50,000 acres of BLM land, and 647,000 acres of Indian tribal land, and 108,000 acres of State land.
The majority of resources available for our economic well-being come from the public lands. Access to those resources are key to our communities' and cultures' ability to survive. The processes that would allow continued access are largely threatened by misinterpretation and misuse of laws and policies originally intended to preserve and protect the environment of these lands.
The single most disruptive force in our rural communities today is the misuse of the Endangered Species Act and the scores of procedures that are required to enact it. The legal interpretation of this once well-supported law have succeeded in driving wedges between environmental organizations, ranchers, loggers, miners, recreation industry and the U.S. Forest Service. More recently, cities, towns and county commissions have been forced to defend themselves and their constituents from the never-ending problems the Endangered Species Act creates for them.
Growing numbers of credible science organizations and institutions seriously criticize its overall effectiveness. Identifiable errors in the determination of what is endangered and threatened have been identified. Wrongful determinations of endangered and threatened status have been exposed, and some of the records of recovery from the Act itself is seriously questioned by the science community.
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The immensity of problems and opportunities for legal wrangling are too large to even comprehend or to ever solve. Land-based people are doomed to a life in the courtroom. We desperately need your help to develop law and action plans that recover species with the involvement of land-based people, not in spite of them.
Law and policy interpretations that remove people from the land are sure to fail in the long run. Laws that put people against people cannot heal the environment or the economic status of rural communities. Law and policy of agencies which takes rights, property, punishes, fines and incarcerates are sure to fail in the long run. Rather, incentives for land-based people to participate willfully in conservation efforts have historically proved most effective.
One only has to look at what has been done working cooperatively to recover game. Ducks, geese, wild turkeys, elk, buffalo and many others, some of which were nearly extinct, now thrive.
We have the science, the money and the will of the people to accomplish anything we set our collective minds to do. The government and the people should not expend all of our financial, mental and physical resources to fight each other in the courtroom. I choose to think we are smarter than that, and when given a useful and balanced opportunity to find a way, we will find a win for the national resources and a win for people.
We need your help to balance the scale of opportunity. Rural northern New Mexicans cannot outspend national environmental organizations within the endless streams of financial and legal resources. Poor science, laws without clarity and policy interpreted by the whim of any individual without consideration for people will only worsen our situation.
The more than $2 billion spent by agencies since 1990 for recovery would have gone a long way to diversify forest habitats had we allowed for sustained timber harvest, thinned overcrowded forests, developed watering for livestock and wildlife, used prescribed burns, controlled brushy species and otherwise enhanced wildlife habitat. Currently we lose 1 percent of our forest ecosystem grasslands each year due to encroachment of trees in the Santa Fe and Carson National Forest. Catastrophic fires consume forest resources and budgets of the agencies who fight them.
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Paperwork, hearings, budget, documentation, notification are the business of government agencies these days. No longer is range science, forestry, soil science, wildlife science and recreation the business of the Forest Service.
Thank you.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Chacon.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Chacon may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Rob Luce.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT LUCE, GENERAL COUNSEL, RIO GRANDE FOREST PRODUCTS, INC., ESPAÑOLA, NEW MEXICO
Mr. LUCE. Madam Chairwoman, Congressman Redmond, my name is Robert Luce. I am here today representing Rio Grande Forest Products, which is located here in Española.
On behalf of Rio Grande, we would like to thank you for the opportunity to present testimony today on such a critical issue, but especially for bringing Washington to Española. It is very, very difficult for us to take our message back, and we appreciate all of your efforts and thank you very much for that opportunity.
Rio Grande operates the largest sawmill in the State of New Mexico. The mill has been located here in Española for over 20 years. We employ approximately 100 people and estimate that over 1,000 families are dependent upon Rio Grande in some way, either through logging, delivering logs or whatever.
The logs we process are harvested from public and private lands as well as tribal lands. We do not endorse so-called clear-cutting. We do not strip the land of every manufacturable tree. All of our logging operations are managed by three graduate and professional foresters.
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The best way for all of us to evaluate whether our current policy is actually working or not is to actually go out into the forest and look. Unfortunately we can't do that today, so I did the next best thing. I brought some photographs for you. What I would like to do is show you the difference between a well-managed forest that is occurring on private land versus what we are seeing in the Federal arena.
The first photographs that I have for you, photograph No. 1 was taken at White Mountain Apache Reservation. This shows a stand of ponderosa pine with overstory, a vigorous stand of young pine regenerated between the seed trees. Broadcast burning removes the competitive vegetation and allows young trees and native grass to establish and thrive.
If you look in photograph No. 2, this is what we are seeing on unmanaged land: Typical young stands of blackjack ponderosa pine, dense crown closure preventing grass seedlings and growth. The smaller trees in the background would carry wildfire from crown to crown. Notice in the bottom portion of the photograph that there is no grass and no seedlings growing.
Fort Apache has been managing the forest since the 1950's. At that time they estimated 1 billion board feet of timber in the early 1950's. For the past 30 years they have cut 30 to 50 million board feet of timber annually. The BIA estimates today are 100 billion board feet after 30 years of cutting.
The controlled burning and the selected harvesting has reduced the risk of fire there, and when you contrast that situation with the next photos, especially photo No. 4, which is the Hondo Complex fire near Questa, the result is the possibility to have regeneration and growth for years, not lose valuable timber and prevent forest fires like occurred at Hondo.
So the challenge for us today is to decide which way we want to go. Do we want to manage our forest as like has occurred at White River, or do we want to continue on with no thinning, no controlled burning and then suffer the consequences of the situation that occurred at Hondo and some of the other fires we have had recently.
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To make matters worse, at Hondo—I want to make sure I get these numbers correct for you—the Forest Service estimates that 7,700 acres of timber was burned in that fire. Carson National Forest estimates approximately 4.1 million feet of timber was lost. After 2 years, there have been six small salvage sales prepared and less than 10 percent of that volume, and only three have been sold and one of the salvages harvested. Our mistakes in letting trees burn and letting national forest burn is by then prohibiting people from salvaging that timber that otherwise is rotting and becoming bug-infested.
I am used to these little clocks here.
In closing what I would like to do is challenge each of to you take these photographs back to Washington and have your colleagues look at the pictures and have them answer these two questions: Does our current land management policy protect the living forest, or does it actually promote the waste of the renewable resource; and second, has the current land management policy reduced the risks of wildfire, or has it actually increased the risks of environmental degradation.
We believe there is a better way. Our view is to follow the example that is being set by the White Mountain Apache Tribe and other privately managed forests if we are truly interested in doing the best possible job of managing several timberlands and Forest Service for everyone. Thank you.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Luce.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Luce may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Bruce Klinekole.
STATEMENT OF BRUCE KLINEKOLE, MESCALERO APACHE CATTLE GROWERS ASSOCIATION, MESCALERO, NEW MEXICO
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Mr. KLINEKOLE. Before I want to say to my brothers behind me, I don't want to turn my back on you, but this is the way they set us up.
First of all, I want to welcome you, Congressman and Chairwoman, to New Mexico from all Native Americans here in New Mexico.
Again, touching on Mr. Rob Luce's valid point, this is what we are doing on the Mescalero Reservation in the southern part of New Mexico. We are doing the same thing with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of Interior.
We do kind of touch on Mr. Luce's comment on clear-cuts. We do that when we have a lot of diseased trees in order to cut back. That is the only time we have that. We have crews that thin out and come right behind it to thin out and put grass seed back on top of that.
On our reservation in Mescalero, which is located in south central New Mexico, we have close to 4,000 head of cattle we run on our reservation. We have big game hunts. We have every kind of animal on our reservation, even the spotted owl. We contend with those, too.
But kind of touching on other things, we do prescribe burn during the wintertime. We don't burn during the summer. We run pipelines, we develop a lot of our springs, and we run pipelines and storage tanks for all of our cattle. When all of these animals are moving around the forest, it breaks up the forest up and moves the ground around, and here comes the grass. We have real lush, grassy vegetation.
That photo number 1, that is the way our forest looks in Mescalero compared to the one to the south of us as well as to the north of us. The forest land is so crowded, there is nothing under it. The squirrels and chipmunks have nothing to run on, they have nothing to play on except the dry dirt. Compared to what we have in the first photo there, that is basically what we have because we have thinning crews. We have two or three crews that go out and thin the trees out.
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As far as the tree cutting, we are planning for the future. We cut little trees here and there, but we don't cut them all down. We leave the big trees. We leave different ones in different places, and we also cut our mature trees. Those that are prone to lightning we cut down because they are structurally too big, and we need to cut them down.
Again, mentioning our prescribed burns, you mentioned prescribed burns. Before we burn an area, we let our Tribal Council and tribal people know. We go in there and let the people cut everything that is in there, whatever they want; juniper, oak, whatever they want, they go in there and cut it, and then we come in with another crew, and they pile all the brush up, and then we burn it. But this is to make clear for grazing land for wildlife as well as our cattle.
So again, we sell fence posts. We put the firewood back into our homes. I would say maybe 65 percent of our people in Mescalero burn on the ground and pine. So we use the land.
One of the things I wanted to touch on is every year we have a coming of age ceremony, and almost approximately 500 trees are cut down for personal use. Each one of these trees are prayed for by medicine men as well as me. When my daughter was coming of age, we prayed for these trees. We are saying, Creator, thank you for these trees. And then when we cut them down, we put that back; not give it back to the people, to the Creator. We have to give it back to him to hide from the wind, to hide from the rain. So that is why we say thank you.
Again, the forest, as you know, as everybody knows, it takes a long time to regenerate, but we are planning our situation to where when my great-great-grandchildren are here, hopefully they will see I have planted many, many trees.
And in summary, I would say, again, our wildlife and cattle live in harmony with each other.
And, Mr. Mayor, I want to comment on one little thing you said. We need to make time. He said we don't have time. We need to make time so we can talk about our problems and let us hear what is going on.
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I invite you all to come down to Mescalero. The only thing is you have to have reservations.
[Laughter and applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Bruce. That was outstanding testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Klinekole may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The way we do things in these congressional hearings, I will yield first to Mr. Redmond for his questions.
Mr. REDMOND. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
I am going to go down the line here with some questions we have developed in listening to your testimony.
Mr. Vargas, could you tell us a little more about the Forest Service letter that insured 50 years of use of the forest and how that came about to be denied?
Mr. VARGAS. Well, it was kind of strange because they first would not allow us to become designated operators in order to buy timber. At that time we were logging, subcontracting lumber for Duke City Lumber.
The Forest allowed for the local people to get so many board feet of actual lumber per year for their own operations. They had a pretext that if we didn't have an existing sawmill, we couldn't be designated as saw timber operators. It was simply a pretext to keep us out of the forest. We had to litigate that with the Forest Service.
Mr. REDMOND. Thank you, Ike.
Max, on the Region III policy, managing national forest land in northern New Mexico, how much can the Forest Service improve the policy?
Mr. CORDOVA. We feel it is a good policy and it speaks to the people of northern New Mexico. Right now the policy is, we are told—is philosophical in that is doesn't have any teeth to it. Basically what we would like to see is that the Forest Service use this as the oil for managing the lands we have here in northern New Mexico.
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It is a good policy. It has a future, but it hasn't been implemented.
Mr. REDMOND. OK. When Chairwoman Chenoweth and I go back to Washington, what can we recommend to put teeth in the policy?
Mr. CORDOVA. Well, for one thing, we would like to see it be a part of the Region III Forest Service plan. You really have to look at the policy to understand what it is really saying. It speaks of conditions, it speaks of vision, and it speaks also of consequences if it is not implemented, and I think those consequences are what have us at this hearing today.
Mr. REDMOND. Can you identify some of those consequences?
Mr. CORDOVA. One of the things the policy does is it speaks of the people as being a resource, also to be considered a resource in the land.
It also speaks that the Forest Service must direct its efforts into preservation of the Spanish American and Native American cultures. The policy basically is—it is a good policy. It needs to be implemented. The policy was done in 1968, 1972, and here we are 1998, and it is still not being implemented by the Forest Service.
Mr. REDMOND. Thank you.
Mr. Chacon, what would you specifically recommend to improve forest health?
Mr. CHACON. Very simply there are a number of different practices that we know are very useful in terms of correcting the problems we have with forest health, and that is many of the things that were addressed here by all of the individuals on this panel, primarily allowing for a sustained type of timber harvest.
We have to thin many of the smaller stands of timber, in order to relieve the amount of fuel and provide for materials and things that are necessary for people to make a living here.
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The other thing that we have here that is a major problem in this particular area, we have some brushy species, and in order to reduce the fire, historically we have to get a brush management plan established specifically for the big sagebrush, gamble oak, primarily the ones that are causing significant problems for us and are part of the—what are causing the reduction of the amount of grasslands we have in our forests. We have to restore a portion of our forest to a grassland as was historically the way it was.
Mr. REDMOND. Do you have anything more you want to say?
Mr. CHACON. Basically the other thing is over the last 20 years or so, people have been removed from me being able to get input to the Forest Service for what needs to happen in their surrounding communities. The Forest Service can't have an advisory committee because of Federal law that prevents those sorts of things, so we have to dance around the issues of having advisory access to the Forest Service that would help us to address some of these things.
So we really need to get the communities involved in the management of public lands as we had a couple of decades ago. We don't have community forests the way we did in the past.
The people know what to do. They have lots of ideas. We do need recurring funds in order to invest back in the land. We only get one-fourth of our grazing fee comes back to the district in order to do range improvements, and it is hardly a pittance of dollars that can't go far enough in terms of what needs to be done; a higher portion of that or other benefits in order to have a working amount of money so that we can do some things on the land and not just let it sit.
Mr. REDMOND. One of the things that you pointed out was not enough access for review and for input. Would you—let me see a show of hands of people who would like to see something like this, an annual review of policy so the people have more access to the policy as it is written in Washington?
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[Audience members raise hands.]
Mr. REDMOND. Mr. Klinekole, a couple of questions. Thank you for the invitation. We will make reservations before we come.
Mr. KLINEKOLE. We have an 800 number.
[Laughter.]
Mr. REDMOND. Some would argue that because tribal lands are not regulated to the same degree as public lands, that you are not subjected to such programs as the ESA and Clean Water Act. Do you believe there will be a time when environment leaders will seek to control tribal lands?
Mr. KLINEKOLE. I hope not. We have a trust responsibility with the Government of the United States of America, and it is too sad to say that we were—I hate to say this—but we were here, and then to have the U.S. Government go against trees which were given to us in the 1800's, and then they put us on little allotments on little reservations.
Ulysses S. Grant, who gave us the reservation back in 1855, he didn't know it, but he gave us a little bit of heaven. We have a lot of pastures, a lot of timber, we have a lot of water, we have snow, we have every kind of recreation that you can imagine, even a casino. I hope and pray that this doesn't happen to us Native Americans.
Again, getting back to something, that it is the trust responsibility. Everybody else is having problems with their lands, their private property. I feel for them. But me as a Native American, I feel very sad, especially for my great-grandchildren, if someday they can see that this used to be ours, but now this is not ours no more. This belongs to people who came from across the ocean, you know.
And that is what makes me sad. I hope that this does not happen, but it could. It is around the corner. We can't dodge it, but with your help and, Chairwoman, with your help, I am sure maybe we can resolve this in a good way. Like I say, we have to make time.
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Mr. REDMOND. I was just wondering, looking at the photos and hearing your testimony, in your dealings with the Forest Service officials and employees, and they look at how you manage compared to how other lands are managed, do they ever wish they could manage the lands the way that you manage the lands, or do they talk to you about, gee, we wish you would come to Santa Fe and show us how to do that?
Mr. KLINEKOLE. Well, one thing I have to kind of say is I do not directly work with the Forest Service, I mean with the tribal lands. I live on the reservation. We have a good communication on our reservations. We know what is going on. We can see it. When there is a problem, we have that right to talk up. We don't petition. We come together and we talk about things, and we say, this is not right, and we take it to the Tribal Council, and they talk it over, and we go back.
Again, this is not United States Forest Service. We are talking about the Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of Interior that we deal with. We are different. But again, we have had really good luck with that particular division or Department of Interior, Babbitt—is that Babbitt? We have been having good luck with him lately.
But again, the people are agency foresters who are on the reservation. They are hired by the council, they are outside people, they are Anglos and they are Spanish. They are not Indian. There are only two or three Native Americans right now on the Forestry who are in that particular field now, who are graduating college.
But in the long run, hopefully we can get enough Native Americans in there where we can run our own reservation the way we want to. Hopefully the U.S. Government will not take that land away from us. That is all we own right now. That is the only territory we have got.
So we have to hold on to what we have got. If there is any discrepancy as to why we can't take care of the land, I don't know how they can say we don't deserve that land when we take care of it. We do the best we can. We develop our springs. We provide fences for our cattle to graze in different sections. We have cut the timber as to what is needed.
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Again, getting to back to what my fellow brothers here have said, our fire reduction is way down, because when you have little kindlings, it just keeps getting higher and higher, and when you have grass on the bottom, there is really nothing there to worry about. We take care of that. We have a very, very low fire danger. We don't have that problem of crowning anymore because of the things we have done with the forest. We worked them.
I hope that answered your questions.
Mr. REDMOND. OK, thank you.
That concludes my questions.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Klinekole, what do you think the environmentalists with whom you are involved in the reservation lands—do they comment to you; do they make it public?
Mr. KLINEKOLE. No, we have not had any problems. We don't see them very much there. Like I said, you have to have a reservation. In a way that is a joke, but it is true. We don't let anybody on our reservation. You just don't go on the reservation when you feel like it. You have to go through the council and ask permission, and you are escorted in because that is our land.
So, therefore, we do not allow any environmentalists on our land. This is again what we want.
[Applause.]
Mr. KLINEKOLE. This is what Ulysses S. Grant, back in 1855, provided us with this little heaven down there in south central New Mexico.
Again, to answer your question, I sincerely hope and pray that this is kept like it is because that is all we have. We don't have the land that we used to, the Mescalero Apache. Again, we used to go from Arizona all the way up through Las Cruces, all the way down to Texas and all the way down Arkansas. That was our homelands. But now we are just put on a little reservation, which is a beautiful place. No problem. We have enough land try to work with anyway.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Klinekole, how have the Mescalero Apaches dealt with the Endangered Species Act? How in the world could you deal with a Mexican spotted owl without the imposition of the Endangered Species Act? How do you do it?
Mr. KLINEKOLE. This book here is—and I am sure it is available—it is called the Mescalero Timber Trust. I was looking at it when I was in my van a while ago, kind of documenting things, because it is made for our future generations. It tells a history of all of our people as well as all the sawmills, as well as all the cutting that we have done from the 1800's to now—well, I take that back, back to 1981 when this book was published. When this book was published in 1981, you look at the index, there is no such things as a Mexican spotted owl.
[Applause.]
Mr. KLINEKOLE. The only thing that is listed in the index is the Mexican pine, and they talk about the Mexican ponderosa pine in this book, and that is the only thing they talk about. So when did this Mexican spotted owl come onto our reservation? I don't know when this came in, you know. We don't know.
Again, this thing is written from the 1800's to 1981, and it does not mention no environmental group, it does not mention nobody, no spotted owl, so I don't know where it came from.
Thank you, Ike, for that.
I got that off Ike because he mentioned it. As far as he knows, he doesn't remember seeing any Mexican spotted owl either.
But anyway, getting back to that, if we do find any spotted owls, our foresters, we have a buffer zone of 100 acres just to contend so we won't be in violation of anything, but we do—that is the only thing we have. We have around the habitat of the spotted owl of 100 acres, that is all.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Do you know of any books that were published before 1980 that mention the Mexican spotted owl?
Mr. KLINEKOLE. I can't.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Do any of you know of references published before 1980?
Mr. VARGAS. There was a study done in 1940, I believe, it was a specific study on spotted owls, and they found them in Salinas, New Mexico, and Arizona, and they found two pairs, two of them in the Jemez Mountains. They heard one in Santa Fe, and they saw two in Taos. They killed one of them, and they did some studies. And they went back and they didn't find them, and so the conclusion was they were basically out of their range, they were just passing through. None of them have been found. I have a copy of it. I would be happy to mail it.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I would be very interested if you would like to do it.
Mr. VARGAS. I would like to mail it.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much.
Bruce, before we leave you, do you have anything else you would like to add?
Mr. KLINEKOLE. There was a poster that my friend—I am sorry, I have forgotten his name, I am real bad with names. That is how come they put this here in front of you. Anyway he had a little poster of Sitting Bull and of something that pertained that you promised us many things, and now you are trying to take it away; is that right?
Mrs. CHENOWETH. That's right. ''The government has made us many promises.'' Sitting Bull said this to a joint session of the U.S. House and Senate. Sitting Bull said it as he addressed that joint session. ''The government has made us many promises and never kept but one. You promised to take our land, and you took it.''
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Mr. KLINEKOLE. I think that's my last comment, and I thank you for showing me that. I remember seeing, but I forgot all about it. There are some things that I see and hear, and this little guy up here can't comprehend them. And I thank everybody for being patient of what I have said, and hopefully I left with a good feeling with everybody. Thank you.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you.
Ike, I have some questions for you, and then I will work my way back to Rob Luce.
You mentioned that there was one spotted owl that was killed, and that is the only one that has been brought forth in this area?
Mr. VARGAS. That has been captured and killed, yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Have there been any sightings, or I guess they hoot from one another, and so there have been hearings and not sightings; is that right?
Mr. VARGAS. That is correct.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Have there been any sightings at all?
Mr. VARGAS. Not that I am aware of.
One of the things that really bothers me about these endangered species, the hysteria that surrounds it, is that sometime back when we were logging the Villa Grande timber sale, there was a big to-do about the peregrine falcon being an endangered species, and if we see one, we are going to shut down your timber sale and so forth. It was very funny because about a week after that, I read a newspaper where there was a peregrine falcon nesting on the 10th floor in Kansas City, and now we are talking about—I guess maybe they could move out of Kansas City and make room for a habitat for peregrine falcons there, but those are the kinds of things that just don't make sense to us around here.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. It doesn't.
In your written testimony you talk about the assault on the customs and cultures and the traditions of this area by the extreme environmental groups. You made a comment in your oral statement that the extremists are giving environmental groups a bad name.
Mr. VARGAS. Well, I didn't finish that part of my testimony. I was trying to get to something that happened. There have been a number of what I consider to be true environmentalists, people like ourselves that have people in the equation. Some of these people have stepped forward and been very severely attacked by these fringe groups. One of the environmental folks that I wanted to mention, he is Professor Wilkerson from the Colorado School of Law, and he wrote a paper taking a stand demanding that Hispanic people who are forest-dependent have more access, so forests should be made to their benefit. He was immediately attacked nationwide by environmental centers and the National Wildlife Federation, and they tried to get him kicked off of that Board.
So when I read that article about McCarthyism, they were leaking the confidential forest documents to the environmentalists, it was very strange to me because I have seen the attacks they have launched against their own people simply because they don't agree with them.
There is no democracy in environment, in the extreme environmental community, none at all. You cannot speak up, or you will be maligned. There is a lady in here who is also a nationally known environmentalist, and if she wants to speak, she can do so herself, but they sent e-mail all across the country accusing her of having a financial interest in our logging company here in Villacitos. It is just a whole lot of lies and vicious attacks that are engaged in by these groups.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Do those environmentalists have a long history of living and working in this area?
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Mr. VARGAS. Some do. Some do. As a matter of fact, some of the most rabid environmentalists that are now raised in Santa Fe actually lived in our villages here in northern New Mexico.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. How do they differ from the indigenous people that you have discussed in your oral and written testimony?
Mr. VARGAS. I think that most of them consider themselves to be superior to the locals. I believe that one of the reasons that they don't want to see large trees cut is because they consider them to be giants in the forest, and since they consider themselves to be giants among men, they want to preserve them.
That is kind of what I see coming from these people. They are very elitist. They look down on the locals. They think they are ignorant and dumb, and that is kind of the attitude most of these people have toward the locals.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Do you sense they are very tolerant with the people?
Mr. VARGAS. I don't sense any tolerance whatsoever. In fact, when one of these environmentalists from the Forest Guardians was asked how he dealt with the Endangered Species Act and in the context of the cultural diversity in northern New Mexico, his response was that biocentrism and ecology have a higher level than any culture or any custom.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Biocentricity of the ecology, can you define that?
Mr. VARGAS. No, I can't.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Ike. I really appreciate your contribution.
Max Cordova, your testimony pleads for people to be self-reliant. With the national forest and tribal lands producing more timber, what type of economic opportunities would be created to make citizens more self-reliant, and also could you state for the record the average annual income of these citizens in this county?
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Mr. CORDOVA. When I look at the Forest Service, I look at the national forest, I look at opportunities to create economic development for our communities through all of the resources that the Forest Service has.
One of the most interesting problems that I see is that in Santa Fe, for example, they use more fuel wood for aesthetic value than we do to heat our homes, especially in Santa Fe where they have natural gas and electricity and a lot of those things.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Aesthetic values like?
Mr. CORDOVA. Keep a little fireplace to create the atmosphere. Not necessary for——
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Ambiance.
Mr. CORDOVA. Yes. I do people's income taxes, and I am always surprised at how people survive. Our income, the income of most of the people that I do taxes for, is under $12,000.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. $12,000?
Mr. CORDOVA. There are some people living on incomes much lower than that, around $7,000. So as you can see, they can't afford butane, for example. The Federal Government has a program called Energy Assistance, and the people usually get a little bit of help in paying their electric bills or being able to buy a load of wood or stuff like that.
When we were engaged with environmental, one of the things they said was we needed better stoves, more weather ventilation and solar. It is fine and dandy, because where is it going to come from? I feel that we need to engage with the Federal Government and State government and the Forest Service in doing those things like putting more insulation in our homes.
Some of our stoves are pretty old, maybe 20 to 40 years old, but our idea is don't tell us what the problem is, help us find a solution to it. It doesn't take anybody to point out problems. It takes special people to find solutions. That is the only thing we ask. We ask to help us find solutions, Forest Service, environment groups and communities also.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Solve their own problems rather than the problems created for them.
Mr. CORDOVA. Oh, yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Mr. Cordova.
Mr. Chacon, besides Mexican spotted owl, what other endangered species are causing conflicts in rural communities?
Mr. CHACON. The major concern we have is the willow flycatcher. There is concern, and it is about to impact several different allotments where willow flycatchers' habitat has been discovered and are listed. And essentially what is liable to happen is the removal of livestock from some of those areas. There has been some allotments in Taos County to the—just to the nearest neighbor here in Rio Arriba County, that will be directly affected by this, so resolution to the problem has not been discovered yet as to what will happen, but certainly if they are restricted from these areas here, certainly that will impact those, and the cattle are going to have to be removed.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. One of you, either Mr. Cordova or you, Gerald, have done some studying on the history of this area and history of law relating to this area where the Congress has dealt very specifically in the past with your rights, the rights that came into being even before New Mexico became a State. Do you have a pencil? I want you to note a Supreme Court decision entitled Sunol v. Hepburn. It was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1850.
If you take that case and then start working up, it is a fascinating history, and there is so much strength that you do have in the law. The only problem is these people are being harassed enormously, and the resources are drying up, and they cannot compete with the Federal Government, who has a never-ending resource of litigation and Federal lawyers they like to keep employed.
But I understand that. I understand your rights to petition. There are more and more Congressmen like your Congressman, Bill Redmond, who understand that. We are working together, and we are working very, very hard to be able to right the wrongs that have been made not by the law, not even necessarily by the Congress, but by assertion and lack of regard for your private property rights, rights that are antecedent.
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So that is why that Supreme Court decision is so very interesting, and so work with that as a linchpin both up and back.
Rob Luce, it is so good to see you. It is so good to see another Idahoan. You know, it always amazes me that—what is absolutely clear and accurate to anyone, the difference between a well-managed forest and a forest that isn't managed at all, and how much better the forest health is in a well-managed forest, how people work better in well-managed forests than that forest that was not cared for.
Why do we keep seeing such a disconnect? In your experience, Rob, in working with the environmental community in this area, why do you think we see such a disconnect in reason and logic, what sight tells us?
Mr. LUCE. Well, for me it is difficult to see, because the contrast is so striking. What I have come up against—and I can use an example in southern Colorado to perhaps at least illustrate what is happening, but may not answer the question. We have a major private logging operation that is occurring near San Luis. Regularly that particular operation gets visited by a number of different environmental groups. Sometimes the encounters are not much more than sign-holding and name-calling, and other times it has escalated.
My feeling is that the people that are protesting and that have difficulty with that particular sale are not informed as to what is going on, and that they are under the impression from somewhere that clear-cutting is occurring, that mudslides and water degradation follow, and that logging needs to be stopped there.
We have attempted to use photographs. We have made offerings to take certain groups up there on the mountain to see what is going on. But it appears to me to be a situation where photographs and the actual physical site doesn't seem to matter. The fringe groups are ignoring science and won't even listen to their own experts that this is good logging and good forest practices. Apparently they are bent on the idea that they would rather see brown dirt after brown dirt and mudslide after mudslide.
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Mrs. CHENOWETH. Rob, you mentioned that the Apache Reservation had an annual harvest of 450 to 100 million board feet, estimates of standing timber voluntarily of 100 billion board feet. How can this be in such an arid area as this?
Mr. LUCE. It is being managed well, to essentially log for 30 years and end up with what you started with.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. So they are logging according to what we are supposed to be logging, and the 90 percent of mortality, correct?
Mr. LUCE. Correct.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. And brings the sustained yield to what we see evidenced there, correct?
Mr. LUCE. That is also occurring in Mescalero there.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Good work.
Well, gentlemen, I have learned a lot from you, and I know I've kept you a long time, but this is important, and we will be able to analyze it.
I would like to turn the mike back over to Congressman Redmond.
Mr. REDMOND. One of the things that I couldn't help but notice sitting in this historic building is that we have representatives from all three racial and ethnic groups working in harmony, and, Mayor, when we unveiled the stamp here 4 or 5 months ago, this is what we prayed for, a stamp of bringing all three cultures to address the issues we all face together. So I want to thank you all.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Gentlemen, thank you very much for your contributions.
I want to call to the witness table Jake Vigil, Tres Piedras Carson National Forest District of El Rito, New Mexico; John Horning, Executive Director, Forest Guardians, from Santa Fe, New Mexico; Kieran Suckling, Executive Director for the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, Arizona; Caren Cowan, Executive Secretary, New Mexico Cattle Growers, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Gabe Estrada, rancher from Las Vegas, New Mexico; Palemon Martinez, Secretary, Northern New Mexico Stockmen's Association, from Valdez, New Mexico.
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Is Kieran Suckling here?
So with that, if the witnesses will please stand and raise your right hands to be sworn.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Jake Vigil, I understand you are going to give your testimony in Spanish?
Mr. VIGIL. It is not that I don't know English, but I would like to speak in Spanish, if you allow me to give it. It will be interpreted.
STATEMENT OF JAKE M. VIGIL, TRES PIEDRAS CARSON NATIONAL FOREST DISTRICT, EL RITO, NEW MEXICO
[Testimony was given in Spanish; English translation follows.]
Mr. VIGIL. Good afternoon. My name is Jake M. Vigil. I am representing the Tio Gordito Cattle Association. I want to thank the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health and Chairperson Chenoweth for allowing me the opportunity to testify to this oversight hearing. I would also like to thank Congressman Bill Redmond for bringing this important hearing to Española, New Mexico. It is my hope some good will come from my testimony.
Make no mistake, I love the forest dearly. I do not want to see it harmed in any way. At the same time, I do not want to see the destruction of our culture and customs.
Please forgive me, I am not an educated man. All of my life has been spent on making a living in the Carson National Forest in the Tres Piedras District raising sheep and cattle with my father.
It is important you understand that I know the forest and I know it very well. My family, the Vigils, settled Medanales in the early 1600's and tamed the tierra cimarrone, or wild lands. As a young boy my father would take me to the high sierras for summer to herd sheep. Those were the happiest days of my life. Sadly, over the years I have noticed a decline in the health of the forest, not because of sheep and cattle—years ago we grazed more livestock than they do today. But because of inappropriate Forest Service policies and the implementation of so-called environmental reforms, my beloved land is suffering.
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We have bent over backward to work with the Forest Service. This year we have already given up 23 days of grazing time on our permits due to what was referred to as production decline. We may possibly lose up to another 30 to 60 days at the end of the season due to a policy called 40–60 utilization. This is a policy, derived from a formula dreamed up by the Forest Service and environmentalists behind closed doors, that dictates utilization of 40 percent of the forage, and 60 percent is left behind. Because of this ridiculous policy, 42 families will be affected, and 3,000 head of cattle will be forcibly removed from the Carson National Forest.
What I find interesting is that years ago we ran more livestock, and the forest looked better than it does today. I believe it is due to the fact that Forest Service has invested so much money fighting the environmentalists in court, and so little is left for range improvements. I can hardly blame the Forest Service for making deals with environmentalists. It is obviously cheaper to strike a deal than it is to fight someone in court. Unfortunately, the cheap way out is not good for forest health, and it will ultimately mean the end of the Hispano culture.
With me today are five pictures I want you to see. One will detail a grazed area, and the other is a nongrazed area. All of the pictures are taken from my ranch: Number 1 is a boundary fence between my Forest Service permit and private land. The one on the left side has never been grazed, and the right has had livestock on it since 1958. You will notice the right has many more different plants, while the left is nothing but sagebrush.
Number 2 and 3 are areas adjacent to each other. You will notice the abundant vegetation in photograph 2, while the space represented in photograph 3 could never support any livestock or wildlife or livestock whatsoever.
Picture number 4 demonstrates the vegetation left behind when we left this pasture in July 28, 1998. Number 5 is an area cattle and wildlife never go because of the canopy under which nothing grows.
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I am always amazed that never once has an environmentalist consulted me or my neighbors, and certainly never has one asked to see our ranches. I might add, none of us has ever been invited to one of their meetings.
Environmentalists have the financial resources to try and make the forests into some idea of what they think the forests should look like. They do not realize grazing and logging are good for the land. As far as I am concerned, radical environmental groups are racist and are out to rid the forests of these Hispano by destroying our livelihood. The Forest Service, with approval from environmental groups, spends millions of dollars each year to recover artifacts and restore ruins. I guess a culture has to be dead for 1,000 years before we try to save it.
Again, thank you for your invitation. I hope I have done some good.
[Applause.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Vigil, I do want to say please forgive me for not pronouncing your name properly. Being an English person that I am and Welsh, I just speak English and understand it better. But I do understand your heart, and that testimony and those pictures just spoke volumes to me. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Vigil may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Horning, before you testify, I want to thank the Forest Guardians for participating in this hearing rather than boycotting it. I really do appreciate you and have a great deal of respect for the fact that you would come and give your testimony. It indicates to me that you do have a desire to try to work things out, and so I look forward to your testimony, Mr. Horning.
STATEMENT OF JOHN HORNING, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FOREST GUARDIANS, SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
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Mr. HORNING. Thank you, Chairwoman Chenoweth, Representative Redmond, good afternoon. My name is John Horning. I am a resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I direct Forest Guardians Watershed Protection Program.
I have lived in Santa Fe and worked for Forest Guardians for 4 years. Like many people all over the Western United States, I am not originally from the West, I am not originally from New Mexico. I moved here from somewhere else. But regardless of where I am from, I am a deedholder, just like all of us, to the public land of New Mexico.
Although much of New Mexico is arid, we are still blessed with hundreds of miles of backwood streams and rivers. The Rio Guadalupe, the Rio Chalupas, these are some of the streams of northern New Mexico. I have walked and seen literally hundreds of river miles all over the State.
These streams and the forests that grow along them, riparian habitat, although they represent only about 1 percent of the land, are critical for all of us. The habitat grazing plan severely damaged these lands, degraded watersheds and rivers and clean water, and harmed fish and wildlife in the underlying areas for the willow flycatcher, the yellow cuckoo bird, the Rio Grande cutthroat trout, the lesser prairie chicken, the sage grouse. The list could go on and on. These are the animals that are on the brink of extinction primarily as a result of years and years of livestock grazing.
I don't want to dwell on this fact, but I will share one quote that is significant not because it highlights this long-standing problem, but because it highlights another more serious problem that I will address momentarily. This is from a report in the early 1990's: There are still millions of acres of land and thousands of miles of stream courses that remain in an unsatisfactory condition. Extreme site areas, instead of being lush grasses in the hot, dry desert, hot, dry climate, are void of vegetation and frequently as dry as the upbrink.
This quote is from a report that never saw the light of day, suppressed because the Forest Service and/or the Livestock Industry conspired to hide the bitter and ugly truth in it.
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For those of you who may wonder why Forest Guardians has resorted and continues to resort to litigation to address livestock grazing on public lands, the answer has to do with Federal land management and that they continually ignore their responsibility to manage the land with the interest of all of the American public in mind. The answer to why we resort to litigation is also in part because of Congressman Don Young's well-publicized recent letter to Forest Service officials and because of hearings like today. Both of these events communicate to the ranching community in particular that it can exist outside and above the law.
These events conspire to put the Western wildstock even more out of touch with the boundaries of the American public who want wildlife and clean water to be the highest priority of public lands. Hearings like these do nothing but communicate to the livestock industry the inevitable fact that it must change and accept that it will have a smaller piece and sometimes no piece of the pie on public lands. Instead they will search to reinforce the livestock industry pattern of denial that grazing creates environment and ecological problems.
Although the ranchers all over the West love to blame the environmental community for their financial woes, the bottom line is the moneys have always been small in the ranching business, even with a long list of Federal subsidies.
The real forces of changes are declining beef prices, declining consumer demand for beef and a real estate market that makes it questionable to raise livestock. As a result of these realities primarily, and not because of environmental organizations, many permittees are looking for ways to get out of the business.
I know that you may have many questions about recent litigation and its effects on permittees and how that came about. I will reserve any testimony about those matters and other matters for questions. I am definitely open to any sort of questions that anyone might have. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Horning.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Horning may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Caren Cowan.
STATEMENT OF CAREN COWAN, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, NEW MEXICO CATTLE GROWERS, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
Ms. COWAN. Thank you, Chairwoman Chenoweth. We appreciate the opportunity, and we appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to be here.
My name is Caren Cowan. I am the executive secretary of New Mexico Cattle Growers Association. I was asked here to address the settlement agreement and litigation that Mr. Horning just referred to. I feel I am in a unique position to discuss that because I was the contact between the permittees and our attorneys, and I was involved intimately in what went on.
The Forest Service has said a lot of things about how the Livestock Growers Association chose not to enter into negotiations. That is a flat lie, and they can't even get their story straight. In this Washington Times article from yesterday, and I would appreciate it if the whole article was inserted into the record, Dave Stewart, the Forest Service's Acting Regional Director for Rangeland Management, said that ''as for excluding the ranchers who held the grazing permits, it wasn't necessary to include them because they weren't directly involved in the lawsuit.'' So he here admitted that we weren't included in what went on. So for them to say we refused to participate, as I say, is an outright lie, and we are amazed that a Federal agency would take this kind of attack.
As far as putting people off the land, which Mr. Horning just referred to, I brought a couple of letters, and I made copies, if anybody's interested, from permittees who are being put off the land. The Forest Service persists in telling the media and public they are not putting people off the land, they are doing it voluntarily. Sure, they are doing it voluntarily, because they have been cut off water, and we are not cruel and inhumane people. If we can't provide for our livestock, if we can't provide the food and water they need, we are going to do something else. So when you take our water away and then say that we voluntarily moved, I think we are talking about another lie.
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I had one gentlemen call me late yesterday afternoon and say, I can't come, but would you ask them what I am supposed to do with 250 cattle that I have no place to go with come September 15? We can't warehouse our livestock. We can't stack them up for 30 or 40 days until we can find a place for them.
In addition, the way that the Forest Service is doing a lot of these things, like Mr. Vigil referred to, they are circumventing the people's rights. Instead of giving documents that are appealable toward telling people, directing them to do what the Forest Service deems necessary, they are going out and giving them letters and asking them to voluntarily do things. The permittees are unaware that if they voluntarily do those things, they have given up their rights. They have no right to appeal, and I feel it offensive that our Federal Government is persisting in this kind of behavior.
You asked a while ago where the disconnect was between the realities of the folks that we see and the land that we live on and the radical environmentalists. The disconnect is what their agenda is. The agenda has nothing to do with what is going on. I guess statements that have been in the press lately clearly state that Mr. Charion suggesting that one endangered species was worth a thousand ranchers.
John Talberth from the Forest Guardians said on KAFE Radio about a month ago that cattle are exotic pets and are nothing of value to the State of New Mexico.
This morning I was in a forest health roundtable, and a Sierra Club member said he would rather see forests burn than logging and cattle grazing.
So let's see what the real agenda is, and we can compare it to overall agenda as like the black helicopters in the news this morning.
What is the agenda? I have a document here that states that in mid-1997, the U.S. Forest Service presented to the Wildland Project a conceptual proposal to reduce livestock and land conflicts. What is a government agency doing submitting anything to the Wildland Project? Where has Congress or anyone condoned the Wildland Project agenda between any of these items or regulations that our Congress has never dealt with? This is something else we find offensive.
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We look at the funding that is going on here. We have been funding our litigation, and it has cost of tens of thousands of dollars to have the Director of Range tell us that we weren't included to participate in these hearings and litigation. We are raising that money through bake sales, dances, and ropings. The computer doesn't even know what a roping is when you spellcheck through. But we found that the Pew Foundation has dumped $675 million into the Southwest in the last 3 years for litigation. We would like to know how much the Forest Guardians and the Southwest Center will take after the settlement agreement was reached in Tucson in the back room.
In conclusion, we keep hearing that ranchers haven't changed. We had a meeting 2 months ago. Virtually the first words out of her mouth were that you cowboys can't do things the way you did 80 years ago. None of us do things the way we used to 80 years ago. The Forest Service doesn't, and we don't.
I would submit to you that I am living proof that the cowboys have changed. Eighty years ago, 50 years ago, 20 years ago, 5 years ago there wouldn't have been somebody in a skirt telling you about this today. Thank you.
[Applause.]
[The prepared statement of Ms. Cowan may be found at end of hearing.]
Ms. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Gabe Estrada.
STATEMENT OF GABE ESTRADA, RANCHER, LAS VEGAS, NEW MEXICO
Mr. ESTRADA. I don't think she left anything for me to say.
Chairwoman Chenoweth, Congressman Redmond, we deeply thank you for bringing Washington to New Mexico, northern New Mexico specifically. I have been to Washington and have addressed committees trying to tell our story of what happens on the ground. And here we are really blessed today, and I am sure the people behind us are happy to see that Washington came to us, we didn't have to go to Washington. And we thank you both for setting up the meeting and for being here and bearing with us on the problems that face our northern New Mexico culture and heritage, our born people.
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[Applause.]
Mr. ESTRADA. One of the subjects that was mentioned was our private property rights. I have to take my hat off to Mr. Redmond. He replaced the person that went to Washington with a perfect record that was a goose egg. Ray felt we didn't need support. Yet as was mentioned before in the prior panel, most or over 20 some percent of our grant lands are in Carson and Santa Fe National Forests, and our people have rights to those lands, not a privilege. We don't normally have rights to the private land, but we have rights to the public land. We need to have those rights preserved because that is what our people stand for.
The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo has been abused. It is probably sitting collecting dust under piles of other documents. We cannot understand why the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act so precede the rights of New Mexico, so precede the rights of Americans on these issues that we have a right to.
These are Johnny-come-lately rights. We have been here for 400 years. Some of us have farmed that land, the same piece of land, for all of these years and are still producing a crop. We used to be forest. Or I guess our responsibility was to support 50 people as farmers because the towns and communities were very small. Today, according to our census people, that figure has two more zeros in back of it.
We are less than 2 percent of the population, and we still have the best supply of food, the cheapest supply of food. The environmentalists have done nothing to let us know that we are producing good quality food on less land and that there is a lot of spirits that are doing a lot of that work. They not only put their working gloves on, but we had to take our chaps off and go to work, and we are still doing a great job. And these people behind me are proven fact and shining examples that all of those bald heads are raising kids and grandkids and great-grandkids, and we want that culture and heritage to stand forever.
[Applause.]
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The northern New Mexico policy was made back in 1969, stating that because of the Carson and the Santa Fe National Forest our lands were taken and fenced in, you might say, into the forest land. So they gave supposedly special privileges to the northern New Mexico people. It took 23 years for that document to surface, and I am the one that found it by mistake sitting in a file in the regional office that nobody had ever told us about.
I have been a permittee for over 23 years when I found this document and knew nothing about it. People made this treaty, just like the Guadalupe Hidalgo, and somebody has made a very good effort to keep it hidden and keep our rights. We have a right to this. They aren't privileges.
People in the Forest Service have told us that it has been a privilege for them to work for us, and people, I want you to know that any public employee belongs to us. We don't belong to them. This is our right and they work for us, and I think they need to hear that over and over again so they will work for us.
We are talking about riparian areas. The environmental community has griped, complained, filed lawsuits. Why don't they take care of the whole body. We need to take care of our water first and then take care of our riparian areas.
We have so many trees per acre that we need to do away with. We can utilize them, we can turn them into cash, we can turn them into houses, we can turn them into paper, do what is needed to be done with them, but we need to do it.
The riparian areas that we are talking about that carry the streams and flows are being reduced. This is the truth, and I am glad somebody brought it to our attention, but it isn't the cattle that have brought those riparian areas to a trickle. It is the number of excessive trees because of Smoky the Bear which suppressed so many fires that we cannot—we do not have the moisture to grow 1,000 to 1,500 trees per acre.
There was a study made on pine and juniper down here by Mountainair that our rainfall could only sustain, mind you, Congresswoman, 200 trees per acre. A pinon, which is an evergreen, we have over 500 per acre. We have over 1500 trees per acre and the canopy cover in the forest that is killing everything.
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I made a comment to Dan Glickman, which I made is 16 years ago, that the trees were killing our forests. We are just having too many trees, suppressing too many fires. Today it is reality. I think you heard from the gentleman sitting in my chair. You heard from the gentleman from the Mescalero Apache Reservation. We have to think and we have to cultivate the forests. I don't care if it is wilderness outside of wilderness, private or whatever. They cannot take care of themselves because of the disease, decay, overcrowding, lack of moisture. One glass of water wouldn't fill the stomachs of everyone in this room, yet that is all the water we have for trees and we need to take care of it.
The other thing that I think government is the steward of this land. We are the guardians of the land. But we should come first. I don't know of the hundreds of endangered species that have been brought up here today. I don't know how to preserve every bird. Where in the hell do we stop?
[Applause.]
I just wanted to close on this one. We have some great programs, the Maintenance Program that was a long range program to help district water for wildlife, for species, for livestock, for human beings. That was killed by Congress. We also had the SCS Program and that was a separate project program. You could apply to build the preliminary for fencing, you could apply for pinon, juniper. It was a very effective program.
We need those various programs back, and all of this was done to put the world—we still treat the land the same, we still do the practices the same. All we need is around five feet more of paperwork to do. Thank you. We really appreciate you being here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Estrada may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes Palemon Martinez.
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STATEMENT OF PALEMON MARTINEZ, SECRETARY, NORTHERN NEW MEXICO STOCKMEN'S ASSOCIATION
Chairwoman Chenoweth and Congressman Redmond, your Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health in Española and northern New Mexico is greatly appreciated. We are an area of limited financial resources and this approach gives us an opportunity to present our viewpoints. We also appreciate the sensitivity of Congressman Bill Redmond to arrange this hearing.
I am the Secretary-Treasurer of the Northern New Mexico Stockmen's Association and a grazing permittee on two allotments in north central New Mexico. My family has been involved in farming and ranching since Spanish settlement in this area and have dealt with agricultural and land management since their inception. I have been a part of this all my life.
I would first like to point out an issue along with the research document that can give you an excellent overview of northern New Mexico and its historical and inherent problems. Our Northern New Mexico Stockmen's Association, feeling the various Federal initiatives, policies and regulations along with the entry of the legally inclined and well-funded environmental organizations, was prompted to consider, ''Do we have any rights on the use of public land, rights we always felt were inherent to our area and culture?'' We had to find out. To do so, we contracted with Dr. Michael C. Meyer, Ph.D, a noted University of Arizona historian in Southwestern and Mexican history.
This year Dr. Meyer has completed his research entitled, ''The Contemporary Significance of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to Land Use Issues in northern New Mexico.'' I have copies of which I will make part of the record for you.
This is a revealing legal and historical perspective of the common land uses under Spain and Mexican law and subsequently under United States jurisdiction. We are providing a copy of the research publication for the record.
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I would like to make the following observations:
The text is informative, interesting and relevant to discussion of northern New Mexico land use issues.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 raises some fundamental issues of property protected for Mexican citizens and their successors in interest in New Mexico as well as the other treaty states.
If treaties, as provided by the U.S. Constitution, Article VI, Section 2, are to be honored as if the treaties were the Constitution itself, how then does the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo apply to the protection of property rights concerning our contemporary land use issues? Can more recent Federal laws such as Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act and others supersede the treaty protections, or are there other avenues? How does Article V apply to property rights and takings issues on either a historical or on current situations? Are these treaty issues similar to those of Native Americans as protected and researched by the U.S. Indian Claims Commission? We were all considered Mexican citizens at the time of the signing of Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Do we merit the same considerations?
To not belabor the research report, I would last call your attention to the section on ''Conclusions and Recommendations,'' pages 82–90. Although Congressman Redmond's Land Grant bill addresses some of these issues, we recommend Congressional review of the above cited recommendations as relate to all the natural resources, land and water, along with the significance to issues related to today's hearing.
We would like to call the Subcommittee's attention to certain Federal Land Management Agency policies:
The U.S. Forest Service, Southwest Region, adopted a northern New Mexico policy in 1969. This was done because of our situation and uniqueness. We felt this was a positive action and we recently recommended this policy continuation to Southwest Regional Forester Towns, and was seemingly well received. We understand this policy was also recommended by the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests. We also heard that although recommended, the legal reviews by higher level legal staff rejected the policy and that policy could not be different than elsewhere. What if we called it northern New Mexico philosophy? The key is the approach and sensitivity to custom and culture, as the case may be.
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Grazing Advisory Committees were part of the operational norm and were abolished. Every other institution operates under similar fashion. We recommend reinstitution of these committees to improve resource management. A worse evil is moving all resource management to the courts. We believe that is the wrong approach to the problems as well as to public land users. The exception may be those direct beneficiaries who are on the litigant payroll.
Range management improvements and conservation supported by Congress and the USFS in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's. This was a needed effort with excellent results. We need those programs reinstated. We believe there would be greater public support for Federal fund expenditures for these programs than for the legal arena.
Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony before your Subcommittee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Martinez may be found at end of hearing.]
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Mr. Martinez.
The Chair yields to Mr. Redmond for his questions.
Mr. REDMOND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My first question is to Mr. Estrada. You said you found a document that would shed light on what—could you identify that document for us, please?
Mr. ESTRADA. It is a northern New Mexico policy for the Carson and Santa Fe National Forest. It should be on the top handout in every Forest Service office in the country up here in the North, but they kept it pretty well hidden.
Mr. REDMOND. Can you give me the date on that document?
Mr. ESTRADA. 1969.
Mr. REDMOND. I would like to ask Mr. Vigil, how has the 40–60 utilization policy affected your operation and your family?
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Mr. VIGIL. It has affected us greatly. We were told we might have to get out the first of September, and my living room is not big enough to put them in there. If the Forest Service would like to see the prices of cows right now. If I get the same amount of cows next year, the replacement would be extra dollars. So I don't have to take a pay loss. Do you get what I am saying?
Mr. REDMOND. What was the rationale for further limiting the number of days?
Mr. VIGIL. Well, the grass, as I showed you on that picture, Picture 3, grass that was on that specific unit when they made us move to our next unit. The next unit had 60 days and now they said they are going to give us 30 days, so that would put us the first of September. I haven't heard anything in writing yet, but I probably will soon.
Mr. REDMOND. I would like to see a show of hands of people who are in the same situation as Mr. Vigil.
[Audience raises hands.]
Mr. REDMOND. About a dozen or so. Of those of you who raised your hands, would you write and document for us the original agreement and then how many days you have lost, and please forward that to my office? In a moment my staff people will pass a card to you and I would like to submit that in the record.
Mr. VIGIL. This will have to be done soon now because it is coming up here, it is a week or two away from it and what to do? If we go to court, will they kick us out next year? We are between a rock and a hard place.
Mr. REDMOND. The Chairwoman and I will meet following this meeting and we will discuss what the options are.
Mr. VIGIL. Thank you.
Ms. COWAN. That is what they are—they have not been given a formal decision document so they have nothing to appeal, they have no way to protect their rights. So we have got to get the formal decision document and not find them in—wait for that documentation and the process to work, because if these guys do what the Forest Service is telling them to do, they have lost their rights.
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Mr. REDMOND. So this would be an example of circumventing the rights of the permittees, as you mentioned earlier?
Ms. COWAN. Absolutely.
Mr. REDMOND. Mr. Horning, could you give an example—I know there are some in regard to the livestock being outside the law in the use of Federal and U.S. Forest Service land?
Mr. HORNING. Yes, trespass, grazing outside the terms and conditions of permits. It happens all the time. Enclosures, areas that were built to protect streams, wetland springs, allowing cows or cows ending up in areas that are intended to be excluded from grazing. In my experience, violations of the terms and conditions of grazing permits are fairly routine.
Mr. REDMOND. Well, one of the things I wanted to clarify, and if you could—if you are unable to, maybe at a future time could you submit documentation from Forest Guardians, but in your tend of public lands, there is approximately a million and a half acres in New Mexico, mostly northern New Mexico, that were Hispanic land grants and honored by the New Mexico government and also by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
In defining community use, the Spanish law was very clear that you could use the term, the deed holders of the land, as being the American public, from sea to shining sea. But in Spanish law, the community land was very clearly defined to be only those original grantee families.
So, for instance, you could be a member and share in the public use of the Soleto land grant, but if you lived in Soleto, you had no rights in the Anton Chico land grant. So in one sense it was community, but it was community only to those original families.
And, of course, this land is now in the hands of the Federal Government. Does the Forest Guardians recognize the distinction between, as you said, deed holder for the public, that in this case the public is limited only to those original families?
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Mr. HORNING. Well, until I see something to the contrary, it is our feeling that the public lands of northern New Mexico, be they in the Carson or Santa Fe National Forests, are no different from any public lands in the rest of the State. I have seen nothing to contradict that. The dots on the map show the land in northern New Mexico is the same color as on other parts of the State. You know, they are national forests, so until I see something that would make me believe that there is a contradiction there, they are public land and that is how we will continue to view them.
Mr. REDMOND. Are you speaking on behalf of Forest Guardians or on behalf of yourself?
Mr. HORNING. We have no formal policy that is at least written up. At that point I am speaking for myself.
Mr. REDMOND. OK, that is all the questions I have.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. The colors on the map? That is the sum total of your understanding of this law? Come on, Mr. Horning.
[Applause.]
The colors on the map? You are a bright man, obviously you are. Don't insult this Committee and this hearing. What is your sum understanding of land grant issues?
Mr. HORNING. What I was trying to convey is that it is a fairly simple understanding. Public lands in northern New Mexico, in my mind, are no different than the public lands of other parts of the Southwest. There is a Federal Land Management Agency that has been given the authority and responsibility to manage other lands with the American public in mind. And I have seen the northern New Mexico policy, I have seen a draft that has changed and updated and was dated 1997, but in my opinion, the lands of southern Colorado, northern New Mexico are no different from the public lands of Idaho.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Have you ever heard of Kearney's Code (sic) or have you ever read the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?
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Mr. HORNING. No, I have not.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. You ought to read it sometime. I have read it, but I can't speak it. Have you ever studied the Land Treaty Act?
Mr. HORNING. No, I have not.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Or the Taylor Grazing Act.
Mr. HORNING. I studied the Taylor Grazing Act, yes.
Mrs. CHENOWETH. I would really like it if you would study that whole series of land law, because you see, I would like to believe that you want to do more than create conflict, and I could sense there was an awful lot of conflict from your frame of reference to our ranchers and loggers and the people who have been historically tied to this land. I would like to believe that because I think you are a bright man.
Mr. HORNING. Is that a question?
Mrs. CHENOWETH. Would you study those laws? Would you take time to look into the history of the land law of this area?
Mr. HORNING. You know, I think the real important issue is that I believe the land should be managed with an eye toward protecting all creatures, with an eye toward insuring that there be a clean and renewable and reliable source of water, and ri