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| Laborin’ Llamas: Participants (human and otherwise) take a Labor Day pack trip to New Mexico’s Valle Vidal, which is threatened by Bush administration plans for coalbed methane drilling. |
Located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the Valle Vidal is prime wildlife habitat, and home to the state’s largest elk herd. Used by hikers, ranchers, hunters, anglers, and Boy Scouts (whose largest camp is located nearby), the area generates up to $5 million annually for local communities.
The Coalition for the Valle Vidal, comprised of ranchers, environmentalists, sportsmen, outfitters and guides, other concerned citizens, and local town councils sprang up in early 2004, and this past September, Coolidge joined its excom. “The only way we can gain protection for this area is to get the support of Republicans as well as Democrats,” he says. “Business owners recognize that if you screw up the land, you screw up the economy, and by getting businesses on board, we hope more Republicans will sign on, too.”
Coolidge and fellow activists Richard Kristin and Norma McCallan have gotten more than 50 Santa Fe businesses to sign on.
McCallan, who Coolidge calls “the heart and backbone of the Northern Group,” also arranged two outings through local outfitter and long-time Valle Vidal supporter Stuart Wilde’s Wild Earth Llama Adventures: a “Take a Llama to Lunch” tour along McCrystal Creek in June, and a three-day Labor Day trip.
The Northern Group has held neighborhood walks in Santa Fe, placed op-eds in the Albuquerque Journal, and co-sponsored an event in Santa Fe featuring former Interior Secretary Stuart Udall, local author William deBuys, and a Republican car dealer/hunting guide who was one of the coalition’s founders. This fall, in preparation for a public comment period on the Forest Service’s Valle Vidal management plan, a brochure was mailed to every member of the Northern Group. “More than 55,000 comments came in, overwhelmingly favoring protection,” McCallan says. But it wasn’t all tabling and talking—in November, Club staffer Sarah Lundstrum organized an Ultimate Frisbee fundraiser in Albuquerque.
In September, Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Representative Tom Udall (D-N.M.) introduced a bill to make Valle Vidal off-limits to drilling, and Governor Bill Richardson held a press conference there urging its protection. Republican Representative Heather Wilson of Albuquerque also visited, saying she’d gotten so many letters from constituents she had to see the area for herself. “Sierra Club members generated a lot of these letters,” says McCallan.
“Most people who know about this remote area are sympathetic,” McCallan says. “This isn’t just about wilderness—it’s a fight on behalf of local people.”
photo by Robert McKee
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