Surprised no thread on this yet. Several projects I've supported for a long time went through; here's the NPCA page on the park service bits, and the Wilderness Society on the designated Wilderness bits. This is a massive expansion.
The biggie is the transfer of the Valles Caldera Preserve to the Park Service. Apparently it won't officially be joined with Bandelier (and the whole thing will stay a Preserve), but hopefully this will improve access. I suspect it will still be managed out of BAND. It'll be interesting to see how the hunting changes; I never convinced my family to go for the elk lottery there while they had a chance at a resident permit.
Similarly, the folks at BAND will be busy with the Los Alamos section of Manhattan Project NHP. Also in the NHP list is Blackstone River Valley, which I presume will be created out of the current "national heritage corridor" (if I'm remembering that wording properly.)
And on the Wilderness side, the Columbine-Hondo is a gorgeous chunk of the Carson; there's definitely mining and development pressure in the area and this'll help preserve not only the area itself but give a little buffer to Wheeler.
The biggie is the transfer of the Valles Caldera Preserve to the Park Service. Apparently it won't officially be joined with Bandelier (and the whole thing will stay a Preserve), but hopefully this will improve access. I suspect it will still be managed out of BAND. It'll be interesting to see how the hunting changes; I never convinced my family to go for the elk lottery there while they had a chance at a resident permit.
Similarly, the folks at BAND will be busy with the Los Alamos section of Manhattan Project NHP. Also in the NHP list is Blackstone River Valley, which I presume will be created out of the current "national heritage corridor" (if I'm remembering that wording properly.)
And on the Wilderness side, the Columbine-Hondo is a gorgeous chunk of the Carson; there's definitely mining and development pressure in the area and this'll help preserve not only the area itself but give a little buffer to Wheeler.
