"Grassbank" Concept Has Spread
From Origin In N.M.'s Bootheel

SANTA FE —(AP)— The Grassbank, an environmentally friendly experiment initiated in New Mexico's Bootheel by the Gray Ranch and neighboring cattle operations, has spread north and won praise from environmental activists.

More than 100 people held a weekend conference on grassbanks, the name for formal agreements among landowners that allow them to send their cattle to common pastures to give their rangelands a rest from the ravages of grazing.

The first such grassbank evolved in southwestern New Mexico a few years ago, involving the Malpai Borderlands Group based in Douglas, Ariz., with help from the 321,000-acre Gray Ranch — the bank.

About half a dozen small ranching operations placed cattle on Gray Ranch pastures. In return, the ranchers agreed to transfer development rights to their property to the Borderlands Group to prevent subdivision and other development.

Bill Miller Jr. of Rodeo, chairman of the Malpai Borderlands Group, said the desire to let wildfire do its necessary ecological job on the landscape was a key motivation for creating the group.

But ranchers had to unite first against development, since subdividing could make it impossible to conduct burns necessary to improve grassland conditions, Miller said.

Those ranchers have assigned development rights to about 30,000 deeded acres to the Malpai Borderlands Group, he said.

The grassbank effort has not only served to bolster available pasture and to protect smaller ranches from development, but it also lets the ranches remain wildlife habitats, Miller said.

Bill deBuys, director of the Conservation Fund's Valle Grande Grassbank, moderated Friday's session.

The Conservation Fund's grassbank operation covers more than 35,000 acres of mostly U.S. Forest Service land on Rowe Mesa, just southeast of Santa Fe.

The fund's permits allow it to graze an average 325 cattle year-around.

The Rowe Mesa grassbank has accepted cattle from grazing permittees in northern New Mexico for the past three years, DeBuys said.

In exchange, he said, the Conservation Fund gets a commitment from the permittees that they will perform range improvements on their allotments of Forest Service land.

While many environmental activist groups have sued the Forest Service, trying to force a reduction in cattle numbers, Atencio said his agency wants to help the local economy as much as possible by providing grazing on public lands.

``It's a people thing,'' he said.

DeBuys said his fund, which bought the Rowe Mesa ranch in 1977, had just completed its third full season of grazing there.

He said the program worked at Rowe because of a history of communal-style land management in northern New Mexico.

Environmental activists who want to see large landscapes preserved must recognize they have to work with the people who live on those landscapes, DeBuys said.

Stewart Udall, a Santa Fe resident who was once the U.S. Interior secretary, opened Friday's meeting by saying it was crucial that conservationists recognize the existence of ranchers and work with them for a better future.

It does no good for environmentalists simply to throw stones at cattlemen, Udall said.

``There ought to be money to help rest land and build grassbanks,'' he said.

He remarked on the fact that the federal government recently had purchased the huge Baca Ranch in the Jemez Mountains.

``It produces more grass than any place I know of in New Mexico,'' he said. ``I wonder whether it might be, in the end, a grassbank.''

Palemon Martinez, president of the Northern New Mexico Stockman's Association, said northern New Mexico has a unique culture that hinges on continuing the centuries-old tradition of livestock grazing.

With land prices soaring, pressures have been mounting against small cattle operators, according to Martinez and Owen Lopez, director of the McCune Foundation.

Lopez said his group helped finance the Valle Grande grassbank.

``I worry a lot about rural New Mexico, and what's happening to it,'' Lopez said.