Bill prioritizes climate-friendly native plants, creation of wildlife habitat - Bryce Dix, KUNM News
A bill making its rounds in Washington D.C. and co-sponsored by New Mexico’s senior Senator Martin Heinrich would create climate-friendly habitats for pollinators and other wildlife.
The Building Native Habitats at Federal Facilities Act, which was introduced with the help of other legislators from Ohio, New Jersey, and Indiana, aims to prioritize the use of native plants in federal projects over non-native plant species.
“Native plants provide key benefits for pollinators and our environment," Heinrich said in a press release. "And the savings from their lower maintenance needs also make them a responsible and cost-effective use of taxpayer dollars.”
Needing very little water, native plants provide habitat for native fauna and mitigate, filter, and retain stormwaters.
According to the advocacy organization National Wildlife Federation, the bill would also mandate the Council on Environmental Quality to report every two years on newfound best practices, analytic findings and how the federal government is promoting native habitats.
State grants $1M to support getting New Mexican youth outdoors and educating about conservation — KUNM News
The New Mexico Outdoor Recreation Division is granting more than $1 million to organizations across the state as part of an ongoing program to get more youth outdoors and educated about conservation.
The state announced today in a press release that 30 organizations in 12 different counties and 5 tribal communities will each receive between $5,000 and $40,000 from the Outdoor Equity Fund, which has now sent out 84 grants totaling more than $5 million since it was started in 2019.
The fund supports programs that provide outdoor experiences that help to foster a spirit of stewardship over New Mexico’s land, water and cultural heritage.
A state official said the programs support a wide variety of experiences including day hikes, hunting and tanning, bike rides, ecosystem monitoring, fly fishing, acequia preservation and even adaptive equine camps among much more.
2023 Round Two (FY24) Outdoor Equity Fund Award Recipients:
Adaptive Sports Program New Mexico
($35,550, Sandoval County): Offering an inclusive ski and snowboarding program for public school students with disabilities. Utilizing a wide variety of adaptive equipment and techniques to support the needs of participating students, ASPNM ensures that all youth can experience the thrill of the slopes of Ski Santa Fe. Removing barriers to outdoor recreation and making adaptive skiing and snowboarding accessible to low-income disabled youth in a positive, empowering way is the primary goal of this ASPNM program.
Adelante Development Center
($40,000, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County): Destination Accessibility is an inclusive program from nonprofit Adelante that will provide affordable mobility equipment rentals such as scooters and wheelchairs for outdoor activities to youth, bridging barriers to exploration and ensuring the outdoors of New Mexico is exciting and accessible for young adventurers with disabilities.
Animas Public Schools
($40,000, Animas, Hidalgo County): Animas Public Schools will provide students with environmental and climate education related to current events via school trips that venture outside—encouraging students to be globally-minded and active citizens, understanding the impact of our actions on the environment, and emphasizing the conservation and preservation of our unique ecosystems.
Big Brothers Big Sisters Mountain Region
($22,500, McKinley County): The Big Brothers Big Sisters will support an outdoor mentoring program that encourages mentors and mentees to spend 4 to 6 hours a month outdoors and in their communities. The program supports participating in monthly events, including hiking, fishing, conservation, outdoor education, and many other outdoor activities.
Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program
($20,000, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County):The Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program will support monthly outdoor education for200 students from low-income schools to collect field data from one of the 33 data collection sites along the Middle Rio Grande. Students gather information about the bosque ecosystem health indicators, like water quality, at established monitoring sites to inform local and federal agencies on resource use and stewardship practices.
Center for Social Sustainable Systems (CESOSS)
($40,000, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County): CESOSS aims to expand the Acequia Education program that has been vital in connecting people, water, and land in the South Valley. The program includes the Pajarito Landmarks Project and the Ciclos de la Tierra Curriculum, two culturally relevant projects that aim to show younger audiences that the land holds family history and dynamic ecological diversity, which in turn will reinvigorate a passion for preserving acequia culture and history among youth.
CYCLE Kids, Inc.
($39,990, Bernalillo County): The CYCLE Kids program helps children get a healthy start in life by partnering with schools to promote physical and emotional well-being through cycling. By harnessing the excitement of riding a bike, CYCLE Kids aims to ensure that children have access to fundamental rights that will set them on the path to success.
Farmington Area Single Track
($40,000, Farmington, San Juan County): Farmington Area Single Track will expand its 8-week inclusive youth cycling program for ages 2 to 18.Teaching youth the basics of cycling, trail etiquette, and outdoor appreciation while fostering team camaraderie.
Gila Resources Information Project
($20,000, Silver City, Grant County): The Silver City Watershed Keepers Nature Discovery Summer Camp is a week-long program for4th, 5th, and 6th-graders aimed at teaching children about their environment, cultural heritage, and public lands. Providing children with outdoor experiences and education on water resource protection and the preservation of cultural sites.
Girls Inc. of Santa Fe
($40,000, Santa Fe, Santa Fe County): Throughout the year, Girls Inc. of Santa Fe immerses over 250 girls in outdoor programs, accumulating over 100hours of engagement. Through these immersive outdoor activities and interactive learning, participants gain knowledge and confidence to explore and engage with the natural world, encouraging them to become responsible and adventurous stewards of our environment.
Hero's Path Palliative Care
($39,050, Bernalillo County): The program provides personalized environmental education and promotes outdoor equity for children with complex medical needs and their families. The program eliminates significant barriers to participation for people facing high medical and mobility challenges by providing skilled nursing and highly trained educators on every field day.
Inspiring Childrens Foundation / 4KINSHIP
($29,000, Navajo Nation, San Juan County): The goal of this program is to use skateboarding to provide Navajo youth with safe spaces for outdoor recreation, health, and personal growth. The funds from this grant will be used to continue and expand the existing free, weekly skateboard classes at the Two Grey Hills Skatepark in Newcomb, NM. By supporting the physical and mental health of Native young people through skateboarding, this program will build a culture of well-being that transcends economic and cultural barriers.
Keshet Dance Company
($39,932, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County): Keshet will partner with 21st Century Public Academy and National Water Dance to support middle school Outdoor Environmental Education specific to water issues. Programming for youth throughout Albuquerque will connect students with creative learning, landscape engagement, water resource conversations, and the opportunity to engage in outdoor performances as part of the national collective.
Mandy's Farm
($27,900, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County): Mandy’s Farm provides enriching outdoor horse experiences to children who are often underrepresented due to intellectual or developmental disabilities. This youth program will be an Adaptive Horsemanship Camp, free-of-charge for these children, with a goal to empower children to flourish and grow in this program. They will experience the joy of riding and bonding with a horse in the outdoor environment.
Mark Armijo Academy
($40,000, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County): Mark Armijo Academy's (MAA) Outdoor Equity Project Get Teens Outside is a dynamic and innovation project which exposes youth who have limited or no experience in the outdoors as an entry point to demonstrating the fun, hands-on, and interactive activities which can transition to careers, and individuals who access the outdoors who normally would not be able to.
New Mexico Interscholastic Cycling League
($38,950, Sandoval County): In support of the vision to enable every New Mexico student to experience mountain biking, New Mexico Interscholastic Cycling League will offer a “Try it Out” program. Partnering with interested communities to introduce mountain biking to youth for the first time, this program brings high quality mountain bikes, helmets, gear, and mountain bike instructors to communities. It also offers scholarships for full-season participation.
New Mexico Wildlife Center
($40,000, Española, Santa Fe County): The New Mexico Wildlife Center will provide interactive programming about wildlife and habitat conservation to sparks excitement in students. Ambassador Animal Encounter programs challenge learners with activities utilizing animal artifacts and creative inquiry to learn about nature, ecosystems, and adaptation.
New Mexico Youth Conservation Foundation
($33,680, Gila, Grant County): The New Mexico Youth Conservation Foundation (NMYCF) is a nonprofit organization focused on supporting outdoor opportunities for New Mexican youth by providing and supporting outdoor programming for schools, nonprofits, and others through free instruction, education, and equipment. The NMYCF also serves as an outdoor lending library for outdoor gear, equipment, tools, and educational supplies.
NMCAN
($40,000, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County): NMCAN provides transformative community building programming designed to provide foster and juvenile justice youth with meaningful relationship-building opportunities. NMCAN recognizes the limited access these young people have to the outdoors and the need for opportunities to connect to the outdoors through this programming.
Public Lands Interpretive Association
($40,000, Doña Ana County): The Whiptail Trails Club empowers 7th and 8th grade students to learn about New Mexico public lands. In its third year, this program aims to provide in-class visits and field trips to more than 200students attending Title 1 schools in Las Cruces and surrounding rural areas. The program will help students learn more about New Mexico public lands and how to be responsible stewards.
Raton Intermediate School
($5,000, Raton, Colfax County): Teachers will add real world connection to science curriculum by taking students outdoors to explore the fascinating world of biomimicry in fishing and native root systems. Students will design and test 3Dprinted fishing bait and utilize 3D printing technology to create systems that mitigate post-forest fire damage. This program empowers students with innovative thinking and environmental stewardship, fostering a deeper connection to the natural world.
Rivers & Birds
($40,000, Arroyo Seco, Taos County): Rivers & Birds’ Earth Stewardship Through Outdoor Recreation Program takes Taos County public school students into nature to teach environmental stewardship and leadership through joyful, multi-day adventures involving hiking and rafting integrated with ecology on public lands.
Santa Fe Children’s Museum
($40,000, Santa Fe, Santa Fe County): Santa Fe Children’s Museum (SFCM) and Earth Care Santa Fe will partner from May through September 2024 to give local underrepresented youth an opportunity to experience the outdoors. Youth will tend and harvest the 12-bed community garden, and learn about pollination, conservation, responsible farming practices, and child development. Youth mentors will co-facilitate the weekly garden program, Seeds and Sprouts, encouraging visitors to learn from the natural world. Youth will then distribute their harvest to local shelters.
Story Packer Productions
($40,000, Jemez Pueblo, Sandoval County): Story Packer Productions promotes health by connecting Indigenous and low-income youth to the outdoors through storytelling, habitat relationship-building, traditional food sovereignty skill building, and animal skin tanning. Youth are provided opportunities for mentorship in storytelling to document experiences and program activities by filming events when culturally appropriate. Participants gain more than experience by taking home the food they farm, meat from their hunts, hides they tan, and videos they produce.
Tamaya Wellness Center Youth Program
($40,000, Santa Ana Pueblo, Sandoval County): The Tamaya Outdoor Adventure Club will provide the youth of Santa Ana Pueblo with opportunities to experience and discover outdoors adventures that may be economically challenging for their family to provide otherwise. The Outdoor Adventure Club will also collaborate with the Santa Ana Department of Natural Resources to provide environmental and climate education.
Teaching Outdoors to ALL Learners (TOTAL NM)
($40,000, Bosque Farms, Valencia County): Using the power of nature, outdoor education for all students, and hands-on experiential learning encompassing multiple subjects at once, TOTAL NM will mentor youth to help design the Outdoor Educator Leadership Institute Program at public schools throughout Valencia County. The end goal will be a framework for outdoor classrooms adaptable for schools, districts, and communities throughout New Mexico.
Trout Unlimited / The Uncivilized Outdoorsman
($39875.10, Rio Arriba County): Trout Unlimited will co-partner with The Uncivilized Outdoorsman, a Pueblo Indigenous-owned company, to provide the Indigenous and Hispanic Youth Fly Fishing Camp during the summer of 2024. The program will be offered to 10 underserved students (ages of 9-18)and their families who self-identify as Indigenous and Hispanic from Sandoval, Rio Arriba, and Santa Fe Counties.
Trout Unlimited New Mexico State Council
($40,000, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County):The Trout Unlimited (TU) New Mexico Council proposes to expand the Trout in the Classroom (TIC) program statewide. Students raise trout in their classrooms, participate in outdoor ecology and recreation events, and release the young fish at designated locations with the guidance of TU volunteers, teachers, and agency support. TIC is a STEM-based collaborative educational program to inspire the next generation of conservation stewards.
Youth Agricultural Cooperative / Southwest Organizing Project
($30,000,Albuquerque, Bernalillo County): The Youth Agricultural Cooperative consists of two main programs: an 8-week summer agricultural internship with 20-30 middle and high school youth and a youth leadership program that with 8-10 young leaders. Youth utilize a community garden for service learning and take produce to market. Youth leaders are supported through scholarships.
Youth Heartline
($25,000, Taos, Taos County): Youth Heartline’s Branches Hiking Program will provide outdoor hiking and camping experiences for youth aged 9-13. Youth will participate in four hiking trips to different locations in the Carson National Forest and the program will culminate in an overnight camping trip. Each activity will incorporate both environmental and socio-emotional education, focused on stewardship, native plant identification, and environmental awareness, while the socio-emotional education will focus on developing coping skills, friendship development, and building confidence.
New Mexico delegation wants more time for the public and tribes to comment on proposed power line — Associated Press
New Mexico's congressional delegation wants the public to have more time to weigh in on a proposed transmission line that would bring more electricity to one of the nation's top nuclear weapons laboratories, saying the comment period should be extended by 60 days.
The project comes as Los Alamos National Laboratory looks to power ongoing operations and future missions that include manufacturing key components for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Native American tribes and environmentalists already have voiced opposition to the multimillion-dollar power line project, which would cross national forest land in an area known as the Caja del Rio and span the Rio Grande at White Rock Canyon. Several pueblos have cultural and spiritual ties to the area.
The congressional delegation said in a letter to the National Nuclear Security Administration that the current 30-day comment period falls on numerous federal and religious holidays and overlaps with multiple Pueblo feasts, making it difficult for any meaningful participation.
Members of the delegation also noted that the All Pueblo Council of Governors — which represents 20 pueblos in New Mexico and Texas — is in the midst of a leadership transition and should have an opportunity to comment and engage directly with the federal officials about the project.
A coalition of environmental groups also sent a request for extending the comment period to March 17.
The All Pueblo Council of Governors in 2021 adopted a resolution to support the preservation of the area, arguing that the Caja del Rio has a dense concentration of petroglyphs, ancestral homes, ceremonial kivas, roads, irrigation structures and other cultural resources.
The tribes say longstanding mismanagement by federal land managers has resulted in desecration to sacred sites on the Caja del Rio.
The U.S. Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration announced in April 2021 that it would be working with federal land managers to assess the project's potential environmental effects. The project calls for new overhead poles, staging areas where materials can be stored and access roads for construction and maintenance.
Part of the line would be built along an existing utility corridor, but a new path would have to be cut through forest land to reach an electrical substation.
Federal officials stated in the draft environmental review released in November that they have been coordinating with tribes, including having tribal experts present during cultural inventories done in 2022 and 2023.
Federal officials also said federal and tribal monitors would be on site during the construction.
Joseph Brophy Toledo, a traditional leader for Jemez Pueblo, told the Santa Fe New Mexican that it's important that the tribes be able to comment on the assessment and make suggestions for protecting the area's cultural resources.
He said he hopes the federal government listens.
"They are going to build it," Toledo said. "I hope they will have all of these protections."
State officials warn of ‘pig butchering’ scam – KUNM News
The New Mexico Securities Department is warning consumers to be aware of a scam it has dubbed “pig butchering.”
The term is a metaphor of “fattening up” a victim who is then “butchered” for much or all of their life savings.
Victims may receive a text message or a voicemail from a wrong number and an innocent-sounding person asks about a meeting or a social plan. If the victim responds, the scammer may continue the conversation and over time, build a relationship. This then turns towards cryptocurrency and investing.
Seniors are particularly at risk or those with fewer social connections and New Mexico’s senior population is growing. They will be 32% of the state’s population by 2030.
People should be on the lookout for random communication from strangers trying to build a relationship or unsolicited investment offers by email, social media or phone. These messages may display urgency that this is a deal you don’t want to miss. They may request to transfer your legitimate crypto investments to an alternate crypto address.
New Mexico’s most popular baby names of 2023 - By Nash Jones, KUNM News
The New Mexico Department of Health has announced the most popular names given to babies born in the state this year. While the top-10 lists for both masculine and feminine names look quite similar to last year’s, there are a few changes.
The name Liam has garnered the top spot on three of the last four annual lists and held strong as the most popular again this year, along with Olivia.
Oliver, on the other hand, has dropped off since last year, along with James. In their place, Josiah and Julian have reemerged after last making appearances in 2017 and 2018 respectively.
Last year saw Evelyn in the top 10, but that name was beat out this year by Sofia with an f. That name, along with its counterpart spelled with a ph, which also made this year’s list, has made the cut six times in the last nine years.
In addition to Liam, the names Mateo, Noah and Santiago have maintained their positions from last year in the top 4 masculine names. They’re followed this year by Ezekiel, Elijah, Josiah, Sebastian, Ezra and Julian.
In addition to Olivia, and the two spellings of Sofia, this year’s most popular feminine names include Amelia, Isabella, Emma, Mia, Aria, Luna and Camila (with one l, for those who are counting).
Kill steps down at New Mexico State, Sanchez elevated to head coach - Associated Press
New Mexico State football coach Jerry Kill is stepping down after two successful seasons and will be replaced by receivers coach Tony Sanchez.
Kill, who had health issues at a previous stop, announced his decision on Saturday.
"This year has been tremendously difficult for me and I gave it everything I had physically, mentally and emotionally," Kill said in a statement. "New Mexico State holds a special place in my heart as it marks the end of my journey as a head coach. While I'll remain involved with the Aggies, I recognize the need for a head coach with a lot of energy. Good luck to Coach Sanchez, the student-athletes and New Mexico State University."
Kill led New Mexico State to consecutive bowl games for the first time in 60 years and had the second-highest two-season win total in program history by going 17-11. The Aggies won 10 games this season for the first time since 1960 before losing to Fresno State in the New Mexico Bowl.
New Mexico State was Kill's first head coaching job since he stepped down at Minnesota in 2015 after having multiple seizures on the sideline. He also served as TCU's interim head coach the final four games of the 2021 season after Gary Patterson's departure.
A former New Mexico State player, Sanchez joined Kill's staff in 2022. He was UNLV's head coach from 2015-19, going 20-40.