Leopold's legacy: New Mexico's Gila Wilderness marks 100th anniversary

Some of Jesse Deubel’s best memories are rooted in the rugged terrains of the Aldo Leopold and Gila Wilderness areas of southwestern New Mexico.

Deubel was 11 when he first accompanied his father on a turkey hunt in the Aldo Leopold Wilderness and 15 when he took an elk with a bow deep in the Gila Wilderness. He said those two adjacent tracts of untamed topography inside the Gila National Forest make up a deep part of who he is.

“That’s where I grew up, even though I did not live near there,” said Deubel, 43, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. “I grew up poor in La Puebla, near Española, in a falling-down adobe (home) heated with a wood-burning stove. But dad had this rusted-out, 1978 Ford pickup that looked like it had rolled down the mountain, and he’d get us to the trailheads down there.”

He said wilderness is a great equalizer.

“When I was in the backcountry, socioeconomic status did not matter at all,” Deubel said. “That’s why I am really connected to that wild landscape.”

This week we celebrate an event that paved the way for people of all backgrounds to enjoy the unspoiled beauties of nature throughout America.

On June 3, 1924, 100 years ago on Monday, the U.S. Forest Service set aside acreage for the Gila Wilderness, the first such designated area in the world, a zone in which roads and mechanized vehicles are not allowed to intrude into the world’s wild heart.

The man who proposed such a radical experiment was a Forest Service employee named Aldo Leopold.

A different view

Deubel is part of “An Evening with Aldo Leopold/Gila Wilderness 100th Anniversary,” a program from 5 to 9 p.m. Sunday at the Larry P. Abraham Agri-Nature Center, 4920 Rio Grande NW, in Los Ranchos.

He is on a panel that also includes Karl Malcolm of the U.S. Forest Service, Tisha Broska of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and Jeremy Romero of the National Wildlife Federation.

Steve Morgan will assume the role of Leopold in a living history presentation.

“When I was a young boy, my father educated me about the great work that Leopold had done,” Deubel said. “He taught me about Leopold’s land ethics, that we are all (humans, animals, plants, soils and waters) just cogs in the wheel.”

Early in his career, Leopold supported strict predator control, but came to recognize that created an imbalance in nature that was every bit as devastating as the jaws of wolves and mountain lions.

Writing in his book “A Sand County Almanac,” Leopold tells of seeing the “fierce green fire” dying in the eyes of a she wolf he played a role in shooting.

“I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves mean more deer, that no wolves would mean a hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”

In 1914, Leopold and other sportsmen created the New Mexico Game Protective Association, which eventually became the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, the nonprofit organization Deubel serves as executive director.

“Our mission is conserving wild, intact landscapes for future generations so they can enjoy outdoor recreation, including, but not limited to, hunting and fishing,” he said. “Never in my dreams did I think I would find myself in a professional position to carry the torch that Leopold lit.”

Not a bad idea

Leopold was born in Burlington, Iowa, in 1887. He graduated from the Yale Forestry School in 1909 and was assigned to the Forest Service district encompassing Arizona and New Mexico. He was forest assistant at Arizona’s Apache National Forest until being transferred in 1911 to New Mexico’s Carson National Forest, where he served as deputy supervisor.

In 1918, Leopold took a break from the Forest Service to work as secretary of the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce. He urged the city to seek donations of land along the Rio Grande for use as a park. That resulted in the acquisition of property that is now home to the ABQ BioPark (zoo, botanic garden, aquarium) and the Rio Grande Nature Center.

Leopold’s memory lingers over Albuquerque. The Aldo Leopold Neighborhood Historic District, a single block on the west side of 14th Street, just south of Central, includes the house Leopold lived in during his time in the city, and the Aldo Leopold Trail is accessed through the Rio Grande Nature Center and goes 1.25 miles north.

In 1919, Leopold returned to the Forest Service, and in 1922, he submitted a formal proposal for the creation of the Gila Wilderness. The Forest Service followed through in 1924, setting aside 755,000 acres for the Gila Wilderness. Today, the Gila Wilderness area has been reduced to 558,014 acres, but the nearby Aldo Leopold Wilderness is 202,000 acres.

One hundred years after the establishment of the Gila Wilderness, it’s clear to see Leopold was on to something. Now the United States can boast more than 111 million acres of wilderness divided over more than 800 wilderness areas.

Take a hike

Leopold left New Mexico in 1924 to take a Forest Service position in Madison, Wisconsin. Later, he was a professor of game management at the University of Wisconsin. In 1948, he died of a heart attack in Wisconsin while fighting a wildfire on a neighbor’s property. He was 61.

Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac,” one of the most influential books in conservation literature, was published in 1949.

“My dad gave me a copy of ‘A Sand County Almanac’ when I was 8 or 9,” Leopold impersonator Morgan said. “I grew up thinking everybody knew who Aldo Leopold was.”

Morgan, 68, is a retired landscape architect who has lived in Kingston for 17 years. He also has a place in Silver City. He’d be hard put to stretch and not be in the Gila National Forest.

He said he researched Leopold’s life diligently for seven years before he started portraying the noted conservationist in one-man shows about 10 years ago.

“It is very easy for me to slip into who I think he was,” Morgan said. “I got my pipe, hat and glasses, and I try to embody his mannerisms. I don’t just recite quotes, I tell stories. It is through (Leopold’s) stories that I get a chance to teach.

“The one thing I stress, when performing for students, is awakening their passions for the outdoors, trying to get them outdoors. We often get mired in our day. It is hard to get out. I tell people to take a walk, to go to some place new and look at its marvels, or go to some place old and see it through new eyes.”

Romero, a panelist at the “Evening with Aldo Leopold” program, works with the National Wildlife Federation, a nonprofit conservation education and advocacy organization.

“We strive to protect and preserve wildlife and wildlife places for future generations, and we try to do so in a changing world, a changing climate and a changing environment,” he said.

Romero, 33, was born in Santa Fe and makes his home there.

“One of the great opportunities presented by living in New Mexico is how easily accessible the outdoors are,” he said. “I come from a family that hunts and fishes and puts wild game in the freezer and on plates for the family. I spend a considerable amount of time, not only in the Gila Wilderness but in other wildernesses in our state and across the country.”

Romero said he is in the camp of people who can’t live without wild places.

“First and foremost, the wilderness is free of human development,” he said. “I like the challenge of going to where few people go — the forest, topography and the historical landscape. It just takes me back in time.”

He said if Leopold were to come back today, he thinks he would be pleased to find people — like himself and his fellow panel members — carrying on his legacy.

“He would see that wilderness has expanded to millions of acres and we have done a pretty good job of protecting it and adding to it,” Romero said. “But he would see the challenges, too, the incredible amount of habitat we lose every year to climate change, wildfires, human development in wild places and more rural places.”

Tough lessons

Deubel said wilderness teaches people self-reliance, the ability to cope with things we are not accustomed to.

“When you are out in the wilderness enjoying nature, your feet hurt, you’re hot, you’re cold,” he said. “But over time, you learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. That is the essence of what wilderness teaches the modern human.”

Deubel believes that 100 years ago, Leopold recognized the need for lessons that help us rediscover our pioneer spirit.

“I’d say he was a student of nature with the remarkable vision to protect it so future generations could also be its students.”