Taos County resident wins national land stewardship award
Miguel Romero, a Taos County resident, was awarded the 2021 Public Lands Foundation (PLF) Landscape Stewardship award at Kit Carson Park on Friday (Oct. 22).
The national award is granted to private citizens and organizations “that work to advance and
sustain community-based stewardship on landscapes that include,
in whole or in part, public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).”
“[Romero] has been doing some amazing work, long-term work on forest management, both with
thinning and firework, big game work and just a variety of work
over the years,” said Jesse Juen, the PLF New Mexico state director.
“It was hands down him,” said Kyle Sahd, the BLM Taos Field Office fire management officer.
Sahd said that when he and Elyssa Duran, a BLM forester, learned about the award they immediately thought of Romero.
“I’m just a steward of the land, I guess,” Romero said with a chuckle after he received the award.
Romero operates a ranch near Tres Piedras, where he raises cattle and has a firewood business. He
said he is not employed and doesn’t have any sort of contract with agencies like the BLM or the PLF. He stated that he is simply always willing to help those agencies, because they have also “donated their time to look at my projects.”
Romero’s relationship with the BLM started with fire management almost 15 years ago. The BLM wanted to mitigate wildfire risk from sagebrush within BLM
land near Romero’s property (the area is now the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument) by
implementing a controlled burn. Romero’s property was within the boundary of where the BLM planned to have the burn.
“When you light off sage in the right conditions, it’s hard to control,” said Romero.
“They asked me if I wouldn’t mind if they were to use our place
to start that fire and run it on. And I said, ‘No problem.’ You know,
that’s great. We had phenomenal results. There was so much sagebrush in there, you could bury a pickup with it,” added Romero.
The PLF award’s written statement, signed by PLF president Edward Shepard, said that he also “has helped in the management of wild land and prescribed fires on both federal land and his private
land by allowing the use of existing roads, thereby reducing costs. He
has also willingly granted access to his property for studies and resource research endeavors.”
Romero said that he attributes the land stewardship award to his family, which started from his great-grandfather, who was a sheep herder who slowly purchased land to where his property rests today.
He said will continue working with the BLM and learning more
‘[Romero] has been doing some amazing work, long-term work on forest management, both with thinning and firework, big game work and just a variety of work over the years.’ JESSE JUEN PLF New Mexico state director
about fire management concepts and practices.
“I’m taking some of these [prescribed burns] and some of these practices that they’ve been using on the BLM site, and trying to cross them over into some of the
private stuff that we’re doing,” said Romero.