Valle de Oro: A Refuge Born from a Neighborhood

Just south of Albuquerque, a former dairy has become the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, the first urban wildlife refuge in the desert Southwest, established in 2012 on about 570 acres beside the Rio Grande. It exists because the people of the Mountain View neighborhood fought to keep industry off the last large stretch of green space in the area, and the refuge has kept community at its center ever since, through community-based planning, paid community consultants, and youth conservation corps restoring the land.

New Mexico’s Commissioner of Public Lands has announced a decision to transfer 212 acres of state trust land bordering the river, which would grow the refuge by nearly half and add the bosque habitat it has lacked. Cranes, wetlands, neighbors: a refuge for wildlife that is also a refuge for community.

Sources: Valle de Oro Urban National Wildlife Refuge to be expanded (The Wilderness Society) · Engaging Communities in Urban Restoration on Valle de Oro (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)