Sierra Club News:

Phyllis K. Ashmead, partnership coordinator of the  Southwest Jemez Mountains Restoration Project will present a talk titled “What’s Going on in Your Backyard? 

The Southwest Jemez Mountains Landscape Restoration Project,” at an Open Meeting of the Sierra Club at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 4 in the Student Center (Bldg. 2) Room 203 on the UNM-Los Alamos campus.  

The public is invited to attend.

“The Southwest Jemez Mountains are a special place,” Ashmead said. “They are the ancestral home to the Pueblo people, important to thousands of forest visitors who come to recreate and they support a diverse habitat for unique wildlife like the Southwest Jemez Mountains salamander. 

“Ecologically speaking, these mountains are out of whack. The combined effects of human activities starting in the late 1800s-including logging, grazing, road building and fire suppression-have been linked to changing the forest, grassland, and riparian ecosystems.

“As a result, this landscape does not function in a way that allows it to recover from disturbances such as major losses from wildfires, insects, disease outbreaks and climate change impacts. We are in a race against time to prevent another Las Conchas fire from happening.

“In this presentation, you’ll learn what the 210,000 Southwest Jemez Mountains Landscape Restoration project aims to do and how it will create a more resilient landscape that will benefit generations to come.”