Fire session didn’t allow for dissent

Ijust left the Community Listening Session, Living with Wildfire, held earlier this month on Zoom and sponsored by Santa Fe County Commissioner Anna Hansen and two environmental activist organizations, and allegedly the other members of the County Commission — although I could only identify one other commissioner present on the Zoom meeting, Anna Hamilton. What a disgrace this meeting was.

It was an insult to my intelligence and patience. I might as well have been to a Trump rally somewhere, the disinformation was so thick. I was dismissed by the commissioner and a moderator from Wild Earth Guardians when I attempted to speak because of a fabricated muting issue.

Commissioner Hansen stated at the outset that Dominick DellaSala, a self-described conservation scientist, was going to be the featured speaker, and he was to be allowed 15 minutes to make his points. He consumed 28 minutes, and then an additional six minutes at the wrap-up. He tried to convince the paltry crowd of 116 people on the Zoom meeting that the world was flat, in terms of fire management, fuels, wildlife and vegetation management of the Santa Fe National Forest — particularly with regard to the proposed Santa Fe Mountains Landscape Resiliency Project.

The major theme of this one-sided spectacle was a demand for Santa Fe National Forest officials to do an environmental impact statement for the project, even though they have completed an environmental assessment that, in my opinion, was more exhaustive than many impact statements.

The strategy of the sponsors of the meeting was clear from the outset; demand an EIS be done in order to stall by years the process and implementation of the project. This is a tired but tried and true strategy by the fringe of environmentalism to block any management they deem unacceptable, despite the overwhelming science proving otherwise.

I am very disappointed in the Santa Fe County commissioners for sponsoring such a one-sided discussion of this important issue and can only hope we will have commissioners with more ability for critical thinking run for office in the next election.

Champe Green is a retired resident of Santa Fe County and a former certified forester by the Society of American Foresters and a certified wildlife biologist by The Wildlife Society. He is a board member of the Santa Fe-Pojoaque Soil and Water Conservation District and has lived in New Mexico for 28 years.