CFRP Project: Supporting the Rio de Las Trampas Forest Council’s Leñero Program

In summer 2021, the Rio de Las Trampas Forest Council was awarded 3-year funding for this community forestry-focused Collaborative Forest Restoration Program (CFRP) project. The project strives to provide fuelwood to the community, achieve forest thinning goals, and offer local residents the opportunity to care for the land. It is modeled after the Cerro Negro Forest Council forestry model, as well as a community stewardship program run by the Camino Real Ranger District from the early 2000s through 2015.

This community forestry model works by employing local residents as leñeros, or community wood cutters. They are contracted by the Forest Council, in collaboration with the Forest Stewards Guild, to thin assigned 1-acre plots of forested federal land. The U.S. Forest Service writes a prescription, or treatment plan, to designate how many trees should be left on the landscape after thinning, and then marks the trees with paint to show leñeros which trees to cut or leave.

The stewardship blocks available for thinning under this CFRP are very close to, and accessible from, the villages of Las Trampas, El Valle, and Chamisal. They have been strategically located to reduce fuel loads 1) in the wildlands-village interface (also called the Wildland Urban Interface, or WUI) and 2) close to the High Road to Taos to protect this major route of exodus.

Leñeros must complete Forest Worker Safety Training (FWST), paid for and provided by the Forest Council, before beginning work on stewardship plots. Leñeros also have access to a stash of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for use during their contract. After thinning, Leñeros are permitted by the Forest Council to harvest wood for commercial or personal use inside their designated project area. Each 1-acre block yields 5-11 cords of wood, primarily composed of piñon pine and juniper. Leñeros do not necessarily have to live within the Las Trampas Land Grant to be eligible for this stewardship program.

Interested in becoming a leñero? Click here to learn more.