Kudos to Santa Fe County Commissioners Camilla Bustamante and Lisa Cacari Stone for their column in today's Albuquerque Journal, Why we need to protect the Caja del Rio.

"In co-sponsoring Santa Fe County Resolution no. 2026-050, we demonstrated our support, and the strong support from communities we represent, for preserving and protecting this important landscape and for passage of the Caja del Rio Protection Act, which was recently introduced in Congress by Heinrich. The act establishes both a Special Management Area within the Santa Fe National Forest and a National Conservation Area on Bureau of Land Management lands encompassing approximately 106,000 acres of public land west of the Rio Grande.

The Santa Fe Board of County Commissioners resolution, which passed unanimously in April this year, affirms our commitment to collaborate with tribal governments, land grant-mercedes, traditional Hispano communities, federal agencies and other stakeholders in the long-term stewardship of the Caja del Rio."

The first congressional hearing for the Caja del Rio Protection Act, sponsored by Senator Martin Heinrich and co-sponsored by Senator Ben Ray Luján, is scheduled for July 15.