Alisa Ogden
Being a steward of the land requires a deep understanding the land and the ability to combine a wide variety of knowledge to make the best decision, even as conditions are constantly changing. When working on public lands, those responsible for caretaking the land must also understand a complex layer of rules and regulations that guide – and sometimes limit – their ability to make these decisions.
Alisa Ogden knows all too well how important it is to have an encyclopedic knowledge of federal, state, and local rules governing her land management. Ogden is a fifth-generation rancher, third-generation farmer from southeastern New Mexico. She grew up working on her family’s farm and ranch, and today combines all of these roles through leadership in cattle, crop, and state associations. As a young adult, she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees before working as one of the first women’s athletic trainers at Colorado State University. She returned to her family’s operation in 1981 in the early days of what would become the farm crisis of the 1980s.
The Rules, Regulations, and Resilience of Public Lands
New Mexico is often subjected to drought, meaning that some of the most resilient and creative land managers come from the southwest. Ogden has valuable insight from her operation’s combined crop and livestock system and emphasizes the need to be proactive in order to stay ahead of the worst impacts. Early on, her father instilled the need to take decisive steps to reduce the impact of drought by cutting back the herd early, doing rotational grazing, and finding opportunities to give the land proper time to heal.
Ogden’s experience was valuable in her leadership of statewide resilience initiatives. The Restore New Mexico initiative, led by the BLM, brought agency personnel together with landowners to solve some landscape-scale challenges. Since 2005, Restore New Mexico has restored more than one million acres, and has eyes on another five million for the years ahead. Troublesome species like juniper and salt cedar, mesquite, greasewood, and even sagebrush, are at the center of their work to encourage native plant regrowth and reduce water use.
Living the Multiple Use Mandate
The federal government owns or manages more than 30% of the State of New Mexico. As a result, most livestock producers have some interface with the federal government. Ogden’s operation is no exception: of the land she operates that isn’t private, more than 2/3 of the total acreage is federal. Having access to land – and the forage it contains – is crucial to public lands operations, but it doesn’t come cheap or simple.
Ogden says, “On any given day, there are over 50 18-wheelers or pickup trucks either operating the oil field or carrying out construction to support oil field operations.” Federal lands come with the added complexity of managing around many other uses: energy, recreation, transportation, and more. Like so many producers, Ogden makes management adjustments to address risk to her livestock and allotment by more traffic, and even does road maintenance since there is so much traffic nearby. The maintenance costs can be significant, but other impacts are staggering: Ogden and her neighbors face more death loss as cattle are frequently hit by vehicles going in excess of 70 miles an hour. These losses aren’t compensated, and in tough times, can be the difference between making it or losing it for many operations.