Refining the blueprint for wildfire and forest resilience
Anyone who has a stake in the health of our forests – and that includes just about all of us – is invited to be part of an ongoing process to update the Taos County strategy for wildfire
risk reduction, forest health and watershed protection.
Earlier this year, the Taos County government was awarded
a $15,000 grant from the New Mexico Association of Counties
to update its Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). The current plan was
last updated in 2016, and many of the good ideas that came out of that document have been put into action.
For instance, partners working on these issues have created new
programs to improve access to firewood and other forest products, while simultaneously reducing the risk that high-severity wildfire poses to communities (visit cerronegroforestcouncil.org to learn more about that program).
Similarly, new mechanisms to give local thinning contractors opportunities to bid on largescale projects on Forest Service lands have treated hundreds of acres and employed dozens of locals in the last year alone.
Also, the Taos Soil and Water Conservation District is supporting a program that provides high
school and college students with hands-on training opportunities that involve collecting useful data before and after forest treatments
to assess the effectiveness of that work at improving the ecological
health of the forests. This data is being used by land managers to fine-tune management techniques. And at least four students who were part of this program intend to pursue degrees in natural resources-related fields so they can come back to Taos County as professionals to help in future restoration efforts.
Given all this momentum, the timing of the current update to the Taos County Community