Allison: Private lands matter in protecting wildlife
In New Mexico, when people think about wildlife and nature, they often envision public lands. Our national forests and rangelands, monuments, wildlife refuges and state trust lands are important both to wildlife and to people. But an equally important truth is often overlooked: The future of New Mexico’s wildlife, water and rural communities ultimately depends on private and working lands.
More than half the land in New Mexico is privately owned and managed — much of it by multi-generational landowners. These private lands provide essential habitat to most of state’s wildlife — from migratory big game to threatened and endangered species. This is not accidental. Early human settlement followed fertile soils, reliable water and hospitable climates. As a result, today’s private lands often overlap with the richest biodiversity and most important headwaters in the region. They provide refuge from intensifying human development and recreational activity, enabling wildlife to rest, feed and reproduce. They also provide habitat connectivity between public lands, enabling wildlife to migrate, adapt and thrive.
Private and working lands are not just beneficial to wildlife, they are the backbone of New Mexico’s rural economy and culture. Family ranches produce food and fiber, sustain livelihoods, support local businesses and contribute to county tax bases that fund roads, schools and emergency services.
What is often overlooked is the scale of investment landowners themselves make to keep these lands intact and healthy. A groundbreaking new report by Southwick Associates and Western Landowners Alliance provides important new insights. In 2024 alone, Western landowners with parcels of 500 acres or more invested more than $407.5 million out of pocket in conservation — an amount comparable to, or exceeding, major federal conservation funding sources. Though outside the scope of this particular study, thousands of landowners of smaller parcels are doing their part as well. This is not passive ownership. It is active, daily care and management: restoring streams, removing invasive species, improving soils, maintaining water infrastructure and managing land through drought, fire and flood.
Landowners routinely forgo more intensive and profitable land uses in favor of long-term land health. Yet this stewardship exists on thin margins. Many farms and ranches operate with slim or negative profits. Wildlife brings public benefits, but it also brings real costs. In 2024, Western landowners absorbed an estimated $101 million in uncompensated losses from wildlife damage to fences, forage and crops, with only a small fraction receiving any compensation. When the costs of keeping land open and healthy become untenable, it is often converted to other uses and the habitat that supports both people and wildlife is lost forever. You can see this happening all around the west.
Private and working lands deliver enormous public benefits. What’s needed are partnerships, policies and economic opportunities that recognize and leverage landowners care and investments so they can continue to sustain wildlife, communities and the wide-open west for generations to come.
–Lesli Allison is CEO of Western Landowners Alliance. Prior to co-founding WLA, she managed a 50,000-acre ranch in Northern New Mexico for 16 years. She lives on her own place near Cañoncito.
