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Healing the bosque one tree at a time
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A half-acre fire in the bosque raged through the Poco Loco River Trail in June, leaving rows of burned trees and foliage in its wake.
Though the forest was once filled with 500 dark, dead trees north of the Rio Bravo riverside picnic area in Southwest Albuquerque, three biologists have worked to restore the cottonwoods, helping them to one day burst back to life with vibrant shades of green.
The three biologists, Maura Hearn, Lauren Urenda and Elena Rosales, are working to heal the Poco Loco burn scar and return it to the diverse, blooming space it once was.
The trio, who are contracted with the city of Albuquerque Open Space Division, make their way through the bosque, clearing dead trees and planting more with every visit they make.
“This is a riparian forest, so it’s not built for a fire,” Rosales said. “We’re living in a changed world, and we’ve made changes to the functioning of the ecosystem, so with things like the changing climate, fire is more prevalent in the bosque.”
Monday morning, the three technicians spent their day removing invasive species like kochia, taking inventory of what flora are still present in the burn scar and identifying what species continue to inhabit the area.
“The general goal is to try and mitigate invasive species that tend to re-sprout and replace them with native seed and regenerate the community as best we can,” Hearn said. “We want to be able to restore this so all the layers of the ecosystem are there. ... Eventually, we hope that the animals that have been trying to use it are able to find what they need here.”
Recovering and conserving the bosque requires constant maintenance and observation. Every day, the trio is doing something new with the bosque. One day, they might be planting willow and cottonwood trees, and the next, they’re doing soil samples to see what can grow.
When the three aren’t removing dead tree stumps and observing Cooper’s hawks swoop into the tree lines, the group is working with the Ancestral Lands Youth Conservation Corps in the hopes of training and uplifting younger communities to continue restoration work in New Mexico.
Hope isn’t lost for the bosque, the biologists said. Since their time surveying and restoring, the biologists have noticed plants sporting shades of green again, animals slowly returning to the area and even new plants finding homes within the Poco Loco trail, including the yerba mansa, a perennial herb that is not often found in New Mexico — something the biologists believe is a sign of restoration.
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“There’s a lot we can also do to help that and to uplift our ecosystems that support us and preserve this beautiful world for us,” Urenda said.
