Collaboration
New Mexico Watershed Collaborations
Increased collaboration across the state of New Mexico seeks to improve the health and safety of the New Mexico’s watersheds to mitigate the potential for catastrophic wildfire and to secure a more certain and sustainable water supply to the state’s citizens through the development and implementation of comprehensive and connected watershed plans and hazardous fuel reduction strategies across landownerships and jurisdictions.
Estancia Basin Monitoring
The purpose of the Estancia Basin Watershed and Forest Health Experimental Monitoring Project is to evaluate the effects of thinning programs and other treatment options on groundwater recharge, vegetation, wildlife, and other resources within the Estancia Basin. The study evaluates four test sites in ponderosa pine and piñon/juniper forests. This is a cooperative effort among the Edgewood, East Estancia, and Claunch-Pinto Soil and Water Conservation Districts. Funding is provided by the New Mexico Water Trust Board
Grant County Eco-Watershed Working Group
The Grant County Eco-Watershed Planning Group was established in 2013. The chair of the group, County Commissioner Gabriel Ramos, invited representatives from the Forest Service, Wood Products Industry, Environmental Organizations and local community members to serve as voting members for the Planning Group for one term (One-Year). The main purpose of the group has been to provide recommendations to the county commissioners. Although voting is limited to the membership identified by the County Planning Group chair, meetings are open to the public. Other individuals from government agencies, non-profit organizations, wood products industry and community citizens attended these meetings. The main benefit of this group, as identified by multiple members and meeting participants, has been to share information about what various organizations are doing within the county.
Greater Rio Grande Watershed Alliance
The Greater Rio Grande Watershed Alliance (GRGWA). GRGWA is a collaboration of soil and water conservation districts (SWCDs), Pueblos, agencies and stakeholders along the Middle Rio Grande Watershed working on landscape-scale watershed restoration, with a focus on non-native phreatophyte removal from the bosque. They use a variety of techniques including extraction,mastication, aerial, basal, foliar and cut-stump herbicide applications and planting grass, shrubs and trees. They follow community, statewide and national management and conservation plans, and also seek to monitor the effectiveness of their restoration efforts.
North Sacramento Mountains Working Group
The North Sacramento Mountains Working Group was established in 2016 to help coordinate planning efforts in the northern Sacramento Mountains area.
Mountainair Collaborative
The Mountainair Collaborative brings partners and stakeholders in the Mountainair Ranger District landscape together to create a collaborative infrastructure and process to build on current relationships and create new relationships for working together to benefit the social, ecological, and economics well being of its communities.
Otero Working Group
The Otero Working Group (OWG) is an interagency collaborative organization that draws together public and private entities to address forest and watershed restoration in the Sacramento Mountains.
Watershed Restoration RT
The purpose of this Watershed Restoration Round Table is to facilitate a conversation about watershed restoration and monitoring that will lead to continued improvements in the ways that we all collaborate to best serve the watersheds and citizens of New Mexico and the Southwest.