By JUNO OGLE
Employees of the daily press
The world’s first designated wilderness area is about to get a little bigger.
The 40-acre expansion of the Gila Wilderness area is just a drop in the bucket, encompassing nearly 560,000 acres in total, but according to the nonprofit Wilderness Land Trust, the expansion will play a critical role in protecting the land and its wildlife.
The Montana-based group recently announced in a press release that it has acquired a 40-acre property in the Gila Wilderness, known as Spring Canyon, and will work with the Gila National Forest to transfer it to public ownership as part of the surrounding Gila Wilderness.
Many public lands are privately owned, so-called inholdings, which often come from donations of railroad land or mining areas in the West, Margosia Jadkowski, marketing and communications director for the Wilderness Land Trust, told the Daily Press.
According to the press release, the property has a year-round water source that feeds the East Fork of the Gila River and provides habitat for species such as the Gila trout, southwestern willow flycatcher, Mexican spotted owl and Mexican gray wolf, all of which are either endangered or threatened.
“They represent a kind of crack in the fabric of wilderness protection,” Jadkowski said of the takeovers. “They are not subject to any protection of the wilderness around them, and the development that takes place there can impact the conservation value of the surrounding wilderness.”
“They can disrupt wildlife migration, they can impact water quality and watersheds. Habitat connectivity is one of the most important aspects of wilderness conservation and it can be disrupted,” she continued. “Even with a relatively small area like Spring Canyon, the impacts can spread beyond those boundaries into the surrounding wilderness.”
The Spring Canyon property has been used for grazing, although Jadkowski said she did not know how long ago it was last actively used. There is no major other development, but the Wilderness Land Trust will work with the U.S. Forest Service to determine what restoration work needs to be done before the land is transferred, Jadkowski said.
“There is a small fence on the property,” she said. “Around the spring, some apple trees have been planted and they are surrounded by fences. This is a decision of the administration. In this case, the amount of work is quite small.”
In some of the investments the nonprofit has acquired in the past, the trust has dismantled buildings and even removed vehicles, she said.
This is the second property in the Gila Wilderness that the trust has acquired, and Jadkowski said there are only four left.
“Our goal is to complete wilderness areas by removing all fencing, and we’ve actually done that in 17 wilderness areas,” she said. “We’re certainly interested in working with landowners for the remaining fencing — but we’re working with landowners who are willing to do that.”
That could take years as the trust tries to build a relationship with the landowners and sort out legal issues. Jadkowski said the Wilderness Land Trust first contacted the Spring Canyon owners about a decade ago.
“A lot of the land has been in the family for quite some time, whether it was used as grazing land, like this one, or whether it was old mining lands,” she said. “That can often lead to really complicated ownership issues that need to be sorted out. Or it’s been passed down through so many generations that many family members have interests in it. All of those dynamics come into play.”
The trust, founded in 1992, has acquired 27 properties in New Mexico totaling 5,032 acres. In the west, it has transferred 587 properties totaling nearly 58,000 acres, the press release said.

Juno Ogle can be reached at [email protected].