Yesterday, Deb Haaland was sworn in as Secretary of the Interior becoming the first Native American to serve as a cabinet officer. In 2018, she and Sharice Davids were the first Native women elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. The Interior department is especially significant due to its critical relationship between the U.S. government and Native nations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Health Service and other agencies are housed within this department. Secretary Haaland is a member of Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico. Here are some images of New Mexico land under the stewardship of the Department of the Interior to celebrate the new cabinet Secretary.
The Bureau of Land Management manages nearly a quarter BILLION acres of land which is nearly one-eighth of the U.S. land mass. Much of the land is set aside for grazing and mineral extraction, but much of the land is designated with greater protection and preservation. Bears Ears National Monument was created by President Obama as one of twenty National Monuments under BLM protection. Native tribes had long struggled for the protection of Bears Ears to preserve Native heritage and holy places. One of the first acts of the Trump Administration was to reduce two-thirds of the land from protection and open it to gas and mineral extraction which would destroy much of the native heritage. The new administration has already reversed some of the extraction rights, and hopefully Haaland will spearhead legislation to protect Bears Ears.
Three Rivers Petroglyph site is a mile long volcanic ridge rising above the Chihuahuan desertland and contains over 21,000 petroglyphs carved into the rocks between 900 and 1,400 C.E. The Jornada Mogollon people used stone tools to excise the patina off the volcanic rock.
Haaland will have a huge task restoring morale and expertise to BLM. In August 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Secretary Bernhardt moved the BLM headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado and many experienced staff quit the agency. Secretary Zinke cheaply gave away leases to huge portions of BLM land for gas and mineral extraction. Not only was this a huge financial loss, one-quarter of U.S. carbon emissions is related to extraction of resources from public lands.
Three Rivers is next to White Sands Missile Range which itself is just north of White Sands National Park.
The National Park Service protects 85 million acres in 423 units across the U.S. in sites such as National Historic Sites, National Monuments, National Recreation Areas, National Lakeshores, and National Seashores. Sixty-three sites are designated as National Parks. White Sands was designated as a National Monument in 1933, by presidential order, and Congress designated it as a National Park in 2019.
The first atomic bomb was created at nearby Alamogordo, New Mexico, and the first test explosion was in the northern edges of White Sands in what is now the Missile Range. The Park has only one access which still is periodically closed for testing in the Range. The gates are locked at night, which presents a problem for photographers since the magical light occurs at dusk and dawn when the white sands are transformed into the colors of the sky. However, the park service allows you to reserve a time to open the gates early if you pay for a ranger to arrive early. Another photographer and I agreed to split the cost, and we were there for the morning magic.
The Department of Interior also oversees the National Historic Landmark program. While some of the designated Historic Landmarks are under NPS or BLM protection, most of the 2,600 sites are privately owned. The San Miguel de Socorro mission was established in the 1620s. While it was abandoned and destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, Spanish missionaries reestablished it the next century. The current church includes beams from the original mission, and is an active Catholic Church and designated as a Landmark. The National Park Service also designates National Trails to help preserve the history of human movement across the continent. The mission is along the Spanish Colonial Mission trail.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service was established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, and is also part of the Department of Interior. It protects over 150 million acres. Many of the sites protect migration paths. One location near Socorro that’s busy right now with migrating sand hill cranes is Bosque del Apache along the Rio Grande River.
The other huge flocks migrating through Bosque are snow geese as they travel internationally from Canada to Mexico. Britain, Costa Rica, and France are leading an international movement called 30x30 with a goal to preserve and conserve 30 percent of the world’s land by 2030. An international summit is scheduled this year in China. However, the negotiations among the countries excludes Indigenous peoples who manage or own one-quarter of the world’s land. Notably, lands managed by Indigenous are more biodiverse and healthy than lands under government conservation. Perhaps Secretary Haaland can lead efforts to expand Indigenous leadership, experience and wisdom in this effort.
One of the great wildlife experiences at Bosque is the dawn blast off. Thousands of cranes and geese spend the night in the waters away from predators. Some time near dawn, the birds are triggered to take off and head out to the grasslands, but they don’t keep a clock, and you never know when the blast off will occur. When it does, the wing beats of thousands of birds and their calls explode in the air as they circle overhead and away. Photographers gather with tripod legs intertwined in the dark to wait for the birds. The stars fill the dark sky as hints of dawn and hope arrive.
