Open Spaces and the Nicodemus Wilderness Project will collaborate this weekend for the last Spring Cleanup of the month.
The Open Space Division is a part of the City of Albuquerque, under the Parks and Recreation Department. Kent Reed Swanson, the associate planner of Open Space, organizes the annual volunteer events hosted by Open Space.
“Open Space deals with the management of the major public open space lands that Albuquerque owns and manages. We cover about 30,000 acres of public land,” Swanson said. “We also work with state parks and the Forest Service. Our main goal is to protect natural resources for the public good.”
Along with that, they will be dealing with outreach about graffiti removal and dog waste. The graffiti is mainly around the area of a dry waterfall on the foothills. Dog waste is a growing problem in the area, Swanson said.
“We are dealing with this throughout our city, people not cleaning up after their dog,” he said. “People think of the foothills less like a park and more like the wilderness, which is not the case.”
Mayor Richard Berry is very supportive of these spring cleanups, Swanson said. Berry often goes to the foothills with his family.
“It is remarkable to see how less trash there is in these areas. We are doing community building, having gotten more people involved. We are taking care of our natural resources,” Swanson said.
This is the 10th annual Spring Cleanup, and is it open to the public for volunteers. The last cleanup will be this Saturday, and registration starts at 8:30 a.m. The cleanup will be at the Open Space Piedra Lisa trail head, which is south of Candelaria. Robert K. Dudley is the leader of the project.
“We have about four different objectives for this project,” Dudley said. “Those are graffiti removal, trash pick up, removal of non-native vegetation, and planting of native trees. We really want to accomplish these four projects, and we want to involve the local community into participating.”
The Nicodemus Wilderness Project is one of four groups that have adopted a trail head.
“Our organization structure is all volunteers, we have no paid staff,” Dudley said. “Our mission is to protect the environment and wildlife while engaging new volunteers.”
The Nicodemus Wilderness Project started the Apprentice Ecologist Initiative in 2005. The program pushes students 13 to 21 years of age to perform their own cleanup project.
“These projects that students put together are ongoing throughout the year. They can write an essay about their projects and apply for a
scholarship. Being around the kids is what has been most rewarding aspect about being part of the project.”
Both the Open Space Division and the Nicodemus Wilderness Project host other events throughout the year. Open Space will be having the River Cleanup on May 15 and National Trails Day on June 5. The Nicodemus Wilderness Project will be part of National Trails Day and also host events in October.
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“The cleanup is one way to promote environmental awareness. Environmental awareness is our primary objective. We basically try to raise awareness for primarily young people to do their own environmentally responsible actions down the road. We want this to affect their personal lifestyle,” Dudley said.
