SAVETHE PRAIRIE PROTECTING OUR GRASSLANDS

“Anyone can love the mountains, but it takes soul to love the
prairie.” -A sign at the Comanche National Grassland

In southeastern Colorado and northern New Mexico the last intact shortgrass prairie in America’s Great Plains rolls into juniper woodland landscapes and breathtaking red-rock canyons hundreds of feet deep. This unique combination of canyonlands,
forested mesas and grasslands supports a highly diverse range of flora and fauna numbering in the thousands. The hard-won environmental equilibrium of these interconnected bioregions cannot be replaced if destroyed. Yet this ecologically and historically rich landscape is now threatened by a huge and unjustifiable land grab by the Pentagon. Two simultaneous phases of military expansion are being promoted in Colorado and New Mexico: a 418,000-acre Phase I Transformation land grab in conjunction with building and development of the existing Piñon
Canyon Maneuver Site between Trinidad and La Junta in southeastern
Colorado (with an ultimate expansion goal of up to 5 million acres); and the expansion of military air space arching northwest from Clayton, New Mexico, into southern Colorado for unmanned aircraft bombing. They are key components in the Pentagon’s plan for a huge high-tech multi-service battlefield and a testing ground for new weapons systems. This is despite the fact that the military already controls more than 25 million acres across the nation. The area targeted by the Pentagon includes not only generational family ranches that are the backbone of the region’s agricultural economy but also the largest dinosaur tracksite in the U.S., pictographs
made by the region’s original inhabitants, Native American sacred sites and Hispanic placitas. There are even ruts carved into the ground from wagons traveling on the Santa Fe Trail. No wonder both the National Trust for Historical Places and Colorado

Preservation Inc. have placed the region on their “Most Endangered Places” list because of the threat of military takeover. The grassland ecosystems of southeastern Colorado and northern New Mexico are of local and global significance. At stake is the key role these native grasslands — which include the outstandingly
healthy Comanche, Kiowa and Rita Blanca National Grasslands and State Wildlife Areas — play as precious and unique wildlife habitat, as a hedge against another dust bowl, as a recharge area for critical groundwater supplies and as an important form of carbon storage for a planet imperilled by global warming. The family ranchers of the region — some with links to the first French, Spanish and Basque explorations — pass their properties from generation to generation and possess land ethics that
value being “close to the earth.” The area ranching community strongly opposes the Pentagon’s plan. Protecting wildlife habitat, archaeological and paleontological
treasures on their lands is part and parcel of generational ranching practices. Similarly, water is precious to people who have survived droughts and
dust bowls and who know firsthand the miracle of life called forth by the rains and by free-running rivers, arroyos and vernal pools. Also the belief that their rural communities are good places to raise a family compels these citizens to maintain a strong social fabric. In terms of sustainable agriculture, there is a symbiotic
relationship between generational ranching practices and these grazing-dependent grasslands. Each sustains the other. Land use changes, especially the highly destructive uses envisioned by the Pentagon, will exacerbate and possibly precipitate the negative effects of climate change. The existing 238,000-acre Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site was created in the early 1980s, with the promises
of no live ballistics and no further expansion – ever. Both promises lie in tatters. Many concerned citizens of diverse interests and backgrounds have been involved since that first takeover, taking a stand against further militarization. In the 1990s, 17,000 acres was wrested back from the Department of Defense and placed within the National Grasslands (U.S. Forest Service) in the form of the Picket Wire
Canyonlands. But with the military determined to pursue this huge new expansion, more and more people and groups from across the region and the nation have been drawn into the fight. Out of their concerns, two organizations were born, with the goals of ending the Pentagon’s expansion plans, ensuring long-term protection for
the region and developing policies and tools for protecting intact ecosystems around the nation from the threat of militarization. Not 1 More Acre! is a non-profit 501(c)(4) organization established to handle legislative, environmental law and FOIA-related actions by opponents of the militarization of the largest continuous native grassland in the nation. The Purgatoire, Apishapa & Comanche Grassland Trust is a non-profit educational 501(c)(3) organization which aims to validate the geographic and geopolitical significance of the area under threat and to raise public awareness
about the region’s environmental values, the importance of generational family
ranching practices, and the tremendous geological and archaeological record
preserved in southeastern Colorado and northern New Mexico.
Over the past year our campaign:
• Brought together an extremely diverse coalition which includes wildlife advocates,
school children and school and college boards, historical groups, conservationists,
Native Americans, ranchers, archaeological societies, water and soil conservancy groups, private property rights activists, labor unions, public lands advocates, religious groups, counties, cities, towns, museums, scientists and farmers.
• Delivered policy at every level of democracy — citizen groups, county commissions, the Colorado state legislature, the U.S. House of Representatives
and the U.S. Senate.

• Fostered an extraordinary bipartisan Congressional effort that won fiscal-year legislation preventing funding of all aspects of expansion at
Piñon Canyon.
• Vigorously engaged in the NEPA processes related to Pentagon expansion plans on the grasslands of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.
In 2008, with your support, we will:
• Increase public awareness of what’s at stake.
• Remain vigorously engaged in all NEPA processes related to military expansion in Colorado and New Mexico.
• Support the continuance of no-funding language in FY2009 and beyond.
• Strengthen and expand legislative support at both federal and state levels.
• Increase the number of partners in our alliance and strengthen relationships to maximize public support for the people, wildlife and places of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico