Wilderness Land Trust Vice President and Senior Lands Specialist Aimee Rutledge with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland

July 23, 2021 – The Sabinoso Wilderness in New Mexico has expanded again thanks to our partnership with Trust for Public Land (TPL), the Wyss Foundation, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the leadership of U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) staff and local public officials.

Through a land donation that included 908 acres of property acquired by The Wilderness Land Trust and TPL’s 8,947-acre Cañon Ciruela property, a total of 9,855 acres have been transferred to the BLM, marking the largest expansion of a federally designated wilderness via donation in U.S. history.

Our work on the Rimrock Rose Ranch project adjacent to the Sabinoso Wilderness opened public access to this previously land-locked wilderness area and increased the size of the federal designation by 25 percent with the first 3,600 acre land transfer in 2017. The latest addition will create a second access point for the public.

During her visit to the Sabinoso, Secretary Haaland called the wilderness “An environmental treasure for all the American people.” We couldn’t agree more with her assessment. Our sincere thanks for your generous support of our work to protect federally designated wilderness in New Mexico and across the American West. Read more about this project in the Albuquerque Journal and Santa Fe New Mexican.

U.S. Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland, Senators Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez, Santa Fe County Commission Anna Hansen, Bureau of Land Management staff, and representatives from The Wilderness Land Trust, Trust for Public Land, National Wildlife Federation, Wyss Foundation, and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation joined together to celebrate the latest Sabinoso Wilderness expansion on July 17, 2021.
Photo credit: Jerod Foster, courtesy of The Trust for Public Land

Photo credit: Jerod Foster, courtesy of The Trust for Public Land 

Photo credit: Jerod Foster, courtesy of The Trust for Public Land