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ARS Home » Plains Area » Las Cruces, New Mexico » Range Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #228681

Title: Essays of a peripheral mind: The range problem in New Mexico

Author
item Havstad, Kris

Submitted to: Rangelands
Publication Type: Trade Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/30/2008
Publication Date: 6/30/2008
Citation: Havstad, K.M. 2008. Essays of a peripheral mind: The range problem in New Mexico. Rangelands. 30(3):56-58.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: This essay reviews the 1908 report on the condition of rangelands in New Mexico written by Elmer Ottis Wooton. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the central recommendation in that report which encouraged a federally based system of land resource management. The premise of this review is that this recommendation was inappropriate, and that management of lands that are strongly shaped by humans should be in the hands of those people living on these rangelands. The increasing frequency of locally-driven, community-based management groups in the western U.S. reflects the value of a non-federal system of management practices and applications.