Caldera Action is one of many citizens groups around the West dedicated to specific places we love. We have a particularly important place in our sites, one of America’s newest national park preserves, the Valles Caldera National Preserve, that is still in its formative years as a new park under the National Park Service.
Our core belief and understanding, that public lands belong to all Americans and that they are places of community and aspiration guides our work. Public lands are meant to be places where we strive to do the best for each other and for other species. Together we take care of the land and species for the next generation and the generations after that.
As we enter a new political era with President Biden, we have a chance to be ambitious and work towards for a more perfect Preserve. We intend to be one of the groups that inspires volunteerism and helps the National Park Service live up to its great past and traditions and honor New Mexico with a well-managed, accessible Preserve.
We know that the NPS shares our values for this place and we see our role as helping them achieve our common goals. We envision a preserve where people have access but that is not overrun and crowded. We see a park where native wildlife is thriving, and where the streams and watersheds are healthy, recovering, and clean. We see a park where people from various cultures can feel welcome in this place they also own.
We will have new leadership at the National Park Service in Washington. Under the past administration, there was no NPS director for four years. Other top posts at the NPS Washington Office stayed vacant and the service suffered neglect and probably intimidation from people in political jobs at the Department of Interior. All of that is over now and we expect President Biden to appoint real leaders and restore the NPS as a solid, respected agency. After all, the National Park Service is the premier land management agency in the United States which is put in charge of the most sensitive and important places our nation holds. Think Yosemite, Yellowstone, the White House, the Valles Caldera.
We hope the new administration will work to create positive working environments at all the parks, so employees stay and devout their careers to our parks. We hope the loss of employees that we’ve seen at places like the Caldera and Bandelier can stop and that good employees who have left might return to help these parks become models of effective management.
President Biden called on all of us to get to work making America better. He called for unity and honesty. We hear him loud and clear. Now we can get off the defensive in terms of our public lands and start to move forward in a positive way, knowing that the federal government is largely our ally again. Environmental health, environmental education, access, justice for differing perspectives and backgrounds… all of this is once again possible.
Please join us in focusing on an ever better future for our public lands. We’ll be calling on everyone to help us help these places.
This is the 2nd comment I’ve entered . I agree with JC, BUT…the problem is Valles Caldera management specifically the superintendent. This land is OUR land, so WHY after 20 years “.public “ is it still closed at night? Ok , sure, the nps has it for 5 years….: still closed. Why? Public land? No. This management is a failure.
The biggest issue at the Valles Caldera National Preserve is the management team led by a Superintendent. They manage day to day operations, access, etc.Carrying over staff from the failed Trust was a problem too. I understand the gesture, but plugging seasoned NPS employees into the development of the new Preserve would have been logical. It’s easy to blame administrations but administrations come and go. Any seasoned government worker is used to that ebb and flow.
That’s absolutely correct. While some management positions have turned over, the NPS has had 6 years now to make improvements to access. The preserve is STILL closed to public access at night, UNLESS you’re a hunter. The preserve is STILL closed to backpacking UNLESS you’re a hunter. The barbed wire and gates are ridiculous. Try to get through the gate at Sulfur even during “open” hours. You have to crawl through. Other entryways are simply barbed wire.