New Mexico Wilderness Alliance
Grants Awarded
The Outdoor Academy program aims to empower rural youth in New Mexico by providing training and mentorship for careers as fishing and rafting guides, linked to traditional land use practices. This initiative will help participants break through cultural and financial barriers, fostering sustainable employment while enhancing the local community's connection to its outdoor economy.
New Mexico Wild aims to create a digital "Wild River Guide" to connect residents and visitors with the state's free-flowing rivers, promoting recreational and educational opportunities. This resource will enhance access to New Mexico's unique river segments, fostering community engagement while encouraging outdoor activities for hikers, boaters, anglers, and families.
New Mexico Wild’s wilderness rangers will restore trail systems in the San Pedro Parks Wilderness and the Calf Canyon/Hermit’s Peak fire burn scar in the Pecos Wilderness by clearing obstacles, improving drainage, and reestablishing lost trails. This initiative is designed to enhance accessibility for outdoor enthusiasts and promote environmental stewardship within the local community.
New Mexico Wild is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) grassroots organization dedicated to the protection, restoration, and continued enjoyment of New Mexico’s wildlands and Wilderness areas. We are committed to raising public awareness of issues affecting New Mexico’s public lands and fostering future stewards. We engage with and amplify the voices of communities that are part of the rich cultural heritage of New Mexico, as well as foster relationships with new partners for wilderness defense and wilderness protection. New Mexico Wild has been leading and facilitating land protection campaigns for over a quarter century and our seasoned, culturally diverse, of-community staff and contractor network encompasses decades of experience, knowledge, and success. New Mexico Wild is known for combining specialized community organizing with a deep knowledge of cultural and ecological preservation. Each year we engage hundreds of volunteers in thousands of hours of volunteer stewardship on public lands. Recent projects have included boater outreach for citizen science, sign replacements, trail building, campground clean-up, solitude monitoring, and youth engagement. In 2023 we engaged 6,587 adults and 1,148 youth volunteers in 8,005 hours, a value of $194,928. We host many activities that provide families with the opportunity to enjoy and learn about wilderness. We promote and sponsor events such as Latino Conservation Week and work with groups like Rocky Mountain Youth Corps and Cottonwood Gulch to give underserved and at-risk youth outdoor experiences that will build a sense of stewardship for our public lands, ensuring future support for New Mexico’s precious wild places. Some of our projects include a Citizen Science program enlisting boaters to collect data on the Rio Chama; working with Boy Scouts to remove old fencing on the Valley Caldera National Preserve; invasive plant removal, trail maintenance, and riparian restoration projects all over the state. We also provide young people with an avenue toward pursuing careers in conservation. For example, we have established a paid internship program for young aspiring female conservationists that we are continuing in 2023 and 2024; this is funded through our Nancy Morton Wilderness Internship Fund. The new Outdoor Academy program being launched by our Friends of the Rio Grande del Norte project (partially funded by NMORD’s Outdoor Equity Grant) guides young people through a training and mentorship program that will enable them to pursue employment as fishing and rafting guides, providing outdoor industry career opportunities working on the lands that they love and grew up on.