{"id":59335,"date":"2020-01-28T14:43:59","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T21:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/krtnradio.com\/?p=59335"},"modified":"2020-01-28T14:43:59","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T21:43:59","slug":"new-mexico-wild-celebrates-introduction-of-legislation-to-establish-new-wilderness-area-in-rio-grande-del-norte-national-monument-bill-to-designate-over-13000-acres-as-cerro-de-la-olla-wilderness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/2020\/01\/28\/new-mexico-wild-celebrates-introduction-of-legislation-to-establish-new-wilderness-area-in-rio-grande-del-norte-national-monument-bill-to-designate-over-13000-acres-as-cerro-de-la-olla-wilderness\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico Wild Celebrates Introduction of Legislation to Establish New Wilderness Area in Rio Grande del Norte National Monument Bill to designate over 13,000 acres as Cerro de la Olla Wilderness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contacts:
\nMark Allison, New Mexico Wild, mark@nmwild.org, 505-239-0906
\nJoey Keefe, New Mexico Wild, joey@nmwild.org, 505-259-4471<\/em><\/p>\n

ALBUQUERQUE (January 28, 2020)<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 New Mexico Wild\u00a0today\u00a0is celebrating legislation introduced by U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) that would establish the Cerro de la Olla Wilderness Area within the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in northern New Mexico. The legislation would designate approximately 13,103 acres of land within the monument as new wilderness to be known as Cerro de la Olla \u2013 which loosely translates to \u201cPot Mountain\u201d in English.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom discovered prehistoric artifacts, we know that humans have visited and used Cerro de la Olla for thousands of years.\u00a0Today, New Mexicans and others visit this rugged mountain to enjoy solitude and expansive vistas, to recreate, and to appreciate its natural splendor,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0said Mark Allison, Executive Director of New Mexico Wild<\/strong>.\u00a0\u201cThis bill recognizes the importance of saving this special place for\u00a0tomorrow\u2019s visitors, human and wildlife alike, that they may have the same opportunities that we are fortunate enough to have\u00a0today.\u00a0Senator Heinrich knows the value of \u2018Pot Mountain\u2019 personally, and so do we.\u00a0We thank him for his continued foresight.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cCerro de la Olla towers over the Taos Plateau and the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. Much like Ute Mountain\u2014protected as wilderness last year\u2014Cerro de la Olla is also a shield volcano with upper elevations that offer solitude and unparalleled views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the East, the San Juan Mountains to the West, and the Rio Grande Gorge down below,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0said Senator Martin Heinrich.\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cThese mountains serve as an important wildlife corridor and provide security habitat for species such as elk, mule deer, black bears, and mountain lions. I\u2019m proud to join the community to introduce legislation to designate Cerro de la Olla as wilderness to ensure this outdoor treasure is there for future generations.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, a package of federal public lands legislation, which was signed into law in\u00a0March 2019, included two new wilderness areas in Taos County: the Cerro del Yuta and Rio San Antonio Wilderness Areas. New Mexico Wild and local stakeholders have been advocating to also permanently protect Cerro de la Olla as wilderness for years, but the legislation was unfortunately unable to make it into last year\u2019s public lands package. The bill Senator Heinrich introduced\u00a0today\u00a0recognizes and corrects this omission.<\/p>\n

\n

The bill enjoys overwhelming community support, including from Taos County, Taos, Questa, Red River, Taos Pueblo, ranchers, sportsmen, veterans groups, and conservation organizations, among others.<\/p>\n

\n

The late community and conservation champion (and former New Mexico Wild board member) Esther Garcia, representing the San Antonio de Rio Colorado Land Grant, was a proponent and we think she would be especially pleased by the introduction of this bill.<\/p>\n

\n

The full text of the legislation is available\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

###<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

THE NEW MEXICO WILDERNESS ALLIANCE or \u201cNew Mexico Wild\u201d is a non-profit 501 (C)(3), independent, homegrown, grassroots, conservation organization dedicated to the protection, restoration and continued respect of New Mexico\u2019s wildlands and Wilderness areas.\u00a0 With staff and thousands of supporters throughout the state, New Mexico Wild is dedicated to the rights and the value of citizen involvement in protecting increasingly rare wild places within public lands. Just as freedom is every American\u2019s birthright so too is Wilderness.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contacts: Mark Allison, New Mexico Wild, mark@nmwild.org, 505-239-0906 Joey Keefe, New Mexico Wild, joey@nmwild.org, 505-259-4471 ALBUQUERQUE (January 28, 2020)\u00a0\u2013 New Mexico Wild\u00a0today\u00a0is celebrating legislation introduced by U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) that would establish the Cerro de la Olla Wilderness Area within the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":59337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","entry","rows-excerpt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59336,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59335\/revisions\/59336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}