The Las Vegas District Office is located at the south end of Storrie Lake State Park, just north of the city of Las Vegas. This district covers a wide array of landscapes from the southern Rockies, “the Sangre de Cristo Mountains”, through the mesa country and out into the eastern plains of New Mexico-all the way to the Texas border. This district includes six counties: San Miguel, Mora, Quay, Curry, Guadalupe and Harding. The District staff includes: District Forester Carmen Austin; Fire Management Officer Eugene Pino; Timber Management Officer Shannon Atencio; Special Projects Forester Travis Vigil; and Administrative Management Officer Michelle Vigil.

The Las Vegas District Office has spent many years developing productive relationships with local municipalities, private landowners and various land management agencies and organizations. Our primary goals are to work with our cooperators in order to help improve forest health and to encourage the successful growth of businesses that depend on forest resources. Many landowners in the southwest are well aware of the overwhelming need to thin local timber stands. What this means to us is that there is also a need to utilize the resultant biomass - small diameter timber. From an optimistic viewpoint, this situation can be handled in a way that will expand existing opportunities for landowners to benefit from the removal of these trees.

We live in an area where ecosystems are threatened because of high stand densities in the forests. The Las Vegas District Office works with many different landowners that want advice on resource management. The management plans that we develop are used as tools to help people restore degraded forested areas.

Local natural resources, particularly timber products, have been an important source of income for many generations of landowners. Now more than ever we are looking at a critical situation that will require the removal of immense amounts of small-diameter timber. In order to restore these ecosystems to a healthy state and to reduce the risk of fire hazard this biomass must be removed from the landscape. By encouraging landowners to utilize their resources in addition to just making improvement to their property, we are helping to improve the local environment as well as the local economy.

We are involved in various educational projects that aim to teach landowners the various opportunities that are available to them, with specific emphasis on small-diameter timber. This district is moving in a positive direction as far as resource management and mitigation. We live in an area with an at-risk watershed and many other critical natural resource issues. The combination of restoration efforts along with utilization of by-products from this restoration can only benefit the forests and the people that depend on them for water, work and a successful traditional way of life.

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