Whitfield — where communities and partners converge

Wind gusts of 30 miles per hour last Friday followed by rain showers with scattered hail on Saturday did not keep some 600 visitors away from Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area.

They traveled from every village in Valencia County, Socorro, Laguna and Albuquerque to see camels.

Most folks had never been to Whitfield. When they arrived at the conservation area’s protected northwest forest, they learned the story of the U.S. Camel Corps expedition in 1857 through the Rio Grande, where it actually happened.

The Whitfield area was the second overnight stop the camels made. Visitors heard camel expert Doug Baum recount tales about the 2.5-mile long caravan of camels, soldiers, civilians and mules following the course of the Rio Grande, en route to Albuquerque, before turning westward.

The visitors who braved the wind and the cold walked right through the very salt-grass meadows that the Camel Corps visited. Whitfield’s 97 acres were natural wetlands that were periodically flooded by the Rio Grande before it was channelized to reduce flooding in Albuquerque 101 years ago. The grasslands were also disturbed when Whitfield became an orchard and the land became eroded by overgrazing.

Over the last 21 years, the Valencia Soil and Water Conservation District transformed the donated, failed Whitfield dairy farm to preserved greenspace. Hundreds of volunteers planted more than 8,000 native trees and brushes, some of which sheltered last weekend’s visitors from wind and dust.

Federal and state partners funded the trails, irrigation ditches and 1.1-acre pond. With community and partner engagement, Valencia SWCD restored the land to mimic the historic ecosystem mosaic along the riparian corridor of the Middle Rio Grande. In this manner, visitors who walked into the conservation area last weekend saw the landscape that Lt. Beale observed 167 years ago.

Two dozen volunteers from the Friends of Whitfield, Youth Conservation Corps, the district’s soil-health trainees and district staff and board members worked for a month preparing for the historic second visitation of camels to Whitfield. The same federal and local partners who helped return Whitfield to a natural riparian habitat were exhibitors at the Earth Day with Camels celebration.

New partner participation in the event included rangers from nearby national monuments — Petroglyph and Salinas Pueblo Missions — who briefed visitors about their programs, which include guiding folks across the night sky at Whitfield’s annual Evening under the Stars.

Valencia SWCD’s growing partnership with the University of New Mexico was in full display under the big tent, with exhibitions from its Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program, Sevilleta Long-term Ecological Research program, and the new institute for Accelerating Resilience Innovations in Drylands (ARID).

Valencia SWCD’s synergistic engagement with these partners means that together our programs reach more people and have a combined greater effect than they would if we operated them alone. The staff of our federal partners at the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), National Parks Service, and the Farm Service Agency (FSA) live in our communities. They are our friends and neighbors.

Both NRCS and FSA are federal programs administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and housed in service centers. Last March, Valencia SWCD learned that USDA would be deeply cutting services provided by NRCS and FSA. Locally, that meant closing the USDA service center in Los Lunas.

The Valencia SWCD board leadership immediately approached NRCS state conservationist Javier Montoya with a plan to keep these agencies accessible to farmers and ranchers within the district: Valencia SWCD could provide space at Whitfield for NRCS and FSA to hold office hours three days per week.

At its March 20 board meeting, Valencia SWCD voted unanimously to approve this in-kind assistance to valued federal partners. Assistant state conservationist for field operations Jason Mondragón Martin called the measure a “perfect example of locally led conservation,” which is the heart of the partnership between NRCS and SWCDs across the nation.

If Whitfield could speak, its statement might be, “This is full-circle partnership whereby the land provides for those who care for it.”

In this light, Valencia SWCD announced at its April 17 board meeting, they unanimously approved providing temporary meeting space to the new Valencia County Arroyo Flood Control District Board of Directors, after learning the flood district could no longer meet in Valencia County government offices.

Finally, residents of Valencia SWCD have received postcards this week, asking them to participate in a survey to inform the new long-range conservation plan for the district. If folks have questions, please write public-input@valenciaswcd-nm.gov or call 505-864-8914.