This could have been just another coffee-table volume
full of stunning vistas and images of elk grazing in misty valleys.
But by refusing to be yet another pretty book, Valles
Caldera: A Vision for New Mexico’s National
Preserve better serves the preserve’s long history
and complicated beauty.
The preserve’s abbreviated
history goes something like this: About a million years ago,
volcanoes created a giant collapsed caldera. In 1860, Congress
granted the land to the Baca family, and family members and
subsequent owners spent the next 140 years running cattle and
cutting timber. In 2000, Congress bought the 89,000-acre ranch for
$101 million. It was a public-lands experiment: The ranch would be
run by a board of trustees as a for-profit corporation and a
working ranch. Since then, management of the area has become
increasingly complicated — and has often taken bitter turns
— particularly since the original Clinton-appointed board has
been largely replaced by appointees of President Bush.
The book is penned by William DeBuys — a founding, and now
former, trust board member — and photographer Don Usner.
DeBuys unravels the preserve’s history, adding up-to-date
inside information that should appeal both to New Mexicans familiar
with the preserve and to anyone interested in public-lands
management — as well as to those who wonder about the daily
deals made in Washington, D.C., and how they affect local
communities.
Usner, a native northern New Mexican, writes
of what it was like for the public to finally gain a stake in this
land that had so long been private and out of reach. He writes:
“In spite of — or perhaps because of — the dearth
of printed images, the Valles Caldera loomed large in the
imaginations of northern New Mexicans. We took pleasure in
exploring around the edges of the Valles Grande, which is as far as
most of us could get on foot, but we also felt cheated, denied
firsthand knowledge of what was back in the other valles.”
Now, it’s Usner’s turn to tantalize us with
the images he captured while exploring the preserve. The land still
remains mostly off-limits to the public; his images leave us hungry
to finally see it for ourselves.
Valles Caldera: A
Vision for New Mexico’s National Preserve
William DeBuys and Don J. Usner
128 pages,
cloth: $34.95.
Museum of New Mexico Press,
2006.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Ode to a public lands experiment.
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