Draft Muleshoe Ecosystem Management Plan
Executive Summary
| Background
The Muleshoe Ecosystem is located in the Galiuro Mountains in southeastern Arizona within northern Cochise County and southern Graham County. The Ecosystem planning area encompasses the Muleshoe Cooperative Management Are (CMA) which is jointly managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Forest Service (FS), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC). The 57,500 acres comprise major portions of the Redfield, Hot Springs, and Cherry Springs watersheds. Included within the planning boundary are the Redfield Canyon Wilderness and Hot Springs Watershed Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), administered by the BLM, and a portion of the Galiuro Wilderness, administered by the FS. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) brought together an interdisciplinary team of resources specialists from the BLM, Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD), FS, TNC, Soza Mesa Ranch, Saguaro-Juniper Association, and Bayless and Berkalew Company to prepare a plan for the Muleshoe Ecosystem. The team members owned or managed land or resources within or adjacent to the Muleshoe Ecosystem and shared the common goal of restoring and enhancing the resources and ecological processes of the Muleshoe Ecosystem through cooperative effort. Additional public participation came from an open house, scoping mailing, and several field trips. Public Participation in Muleshoe Ecosystem Management Plan Extensive public participation was solicited in preparation of the Muleshoe Ecosystem Plan. A scoping open house was held in Benson, Arizona in November 1990 to initiate the planning process. The purpose was to solicit issues that needed to be addressed during planning. The plan was delayed for several years due to higher priorities. The plan was reinitiated in December 1993. At this time, an extensive mailing to solicit new or additional scoping comments occurred. Scoping letters were sent to a mailing list of over 500 including individuals in 52 Arizona communities, individuals in 12 other states, 60 public agencies, 61 organizations and special interest groups, and 66 businesses. Recipients were asked to reply if they wished to remain on the mailing list. Through this process, the mailing list was reduced to approximately 150. In June 1994, invitations were mailed to the reduced list, inviting them on two field trips to the Muleshoe. The field trips, to discuss resource objectives on the ground, were held in July and August 1994. Finally, various public interests were represented by agencies and private landholders on the planning team. The Muleshoe Ecosystem Management Plan (EMP) will become the primary guide for management of all BLM administered public lands (including wilderness) within the Muleshoe Ecosystem. This plan also provides management guidance for TNC private lands within the CMA. Although the USFS had already developed plans for the Galiuro Wilderness, their participation was important for achieving consistency in management of the two adjoining wilderness areas. The Muleshoe EMP includes interdisciplinary activity planning for the Redfield Canyon Wilderness, Hot Springs ACEC, Soza Mesa and Muleshoe Allotments, wildlife habitat, recreation and cultural resources. Ecosystem Management Approach Ecosystem management can be defined simply as keeping natural environments healthy, diverse, and productive so people can benefit from them year after year. The ecosystem management approach means identifying limits to use and development of the land's resources and managing within those limits in order to ensure the long-term health, biodiversity, and productivity of the environment. For some areas, it also means trying to restore damaged land to a healthy condition. Ecosystem management recognizes that natural systems must be sustained in order to meet the social and economic needs of future generations. The ecosystem management approach for the Muleshoe Plan had several major steps. Since ecosystems do not stop at traditional boundary lines, the first step was to look across boundaries and develop an active partnership between public and private interests to work on the plan. This was accomplished by bringing together the interagency and interdisciplinary team. The next step was to use inventory data and the best scientific information available to determine existing and potential resource conditions and current and future potential impacts on the resources of the ecosystem. The team then used this information in subsequent steps including development of a vision and goals, consolidation of planning issues, and development of resource objectives and management actions to respond to the issues. The team also developed monitoring and an evaluation schedule to track progress in achieving the objectives. Proposed Plan The proposed action provides for the protection and enhancement of ecosystem resources, processes and function including riparian and upland vegetation, wildlife, wilderness, cultural and social environment values while allowing for compatible levels of use. Six resource objectives were developed by the planning team and management actions were prescribed to achieve them. A monitoring schedule was developed to track progress in achieving the objectives. Informal evaluations of the plan will be conducted annually and formal evaluations will be conducted at least every five years. 1. Riparian Objective The objective for the riparian areas on the Muleshoe is to achieve or maintain proper functioning condition and high seral ecological states for the riparian vegetation. In this condition, the riparian areas will support a diversity of native riparian vegetation with all age classes of woody riparian vegetation well represented, will have dense vegetation with structural complexity, will support a diversity of aquatic habitats including pools, nuns, and riffles, and will have natural processes working near optimum in this zone of the ecosystem. The objective recognizes the dynamic nature of riparian areas by specifying that the areas recover to desired conditions within 5 years of any major flood that decreases the tree density by at least 1/3 through scouring and removal. Proposed actions to achieve the riparian objective include pursuing instream flow water rights, removing non-native vegetation, implementing closure of Hot Springs Canyon Riparian area to vehicles, eliminating livestock grazing in riparian areas, designating Bass Canyon as a day use area, ensuring that recreation activities in riparian areas do not cause adverse impacts to stream bank stability, and prohibiting commercial collection of plant materials or wood-cuffing in riparian areas. Casual uses and traditional use collecting by native Americans will be allowed. Prescribed fire units will include riparian areas, but special practices will be used to avoid burning them except for small experimental areas. 2. Upland Objective For the Muleshoe portion of the planning area, the upland objective is to improve water conditions and wildlife habitat by converting shrub invaded grassland to more open, denser stands of grass with mid-tall statured perennial grasses replacing annual or short growth forms of perennial grasses. For the Soza Mesa portion of the planning area, the upland objective is to maintain current high and potential natural community (PNC) range conditions and to improve mid condition range to high or PNC. Proposed actions to achieve the upland objective include implementation of a prescribed fire program and livestock grazing management. Livestock management actions include reducing the size of the Muleshoe Allotment to exclude riparian areas, placing the grazing on the remaining area of the allotment in Pride Basin in nonuse until desired upland vegetation conditions are achieved and then constructing necessary range improvements when grazing is resumed. In addition, active grazing will continue on Soza Mesa under a rotational grazing plan, and the necessary range improvements will be cooperatively developed. 3. Fish and Wildlife Objective The fish and wildlife objective is to maintain and enhance the biological diversity of the Muleshoe Ecosystem by re-establishing extirpated native species to the Muleshoe and by supplementing or extending the ranges of existing native species on the Muleshoe. Proposed actions to achieve the fish and wildlife objective include evaluating habitat potential for reintroduction, reestablishment, range extension or supplementation of fish and wildlife including several native fish species, bighorn sheep, and turkey. Where habitat potential is present, the appropriate action will be pursued using AZGFD established procedures. Other actions include inventory for exotic aquatic species and removal of any exotics which are threatening native aquatic species and inventory of natural and artificial water sources to assess the adequacy of permanent water for wildlife. 4. Cultural Resources Objective The objective for cultural resources (prehistoric and historic sites and artifacts as well as Native American traditional use plants) is to protect and preserve them on the planning area while making them available for scientific, public, and sociocultural uses. Proposed actions to achieve the cultural objective include conducting a class III inventory of the planning area, completing an ethnoecology study of planning area, posting regulatory and interpretive signs about cultural resources, classifying traditional use plants and areas, creating a partnership education program with universities, fencing livestock out of significant cultural sites and pre-treating cultural sites that could be impacted by prescribed burns. 5. Wilderness Objective The wilderness objective is to maintain and improve wilderness values of naturalness and outstanding opportunities for solitude and primitive, non-motorized types of recreation in the Galiuro Wilderness and Redfield Canyon Wildernesses. Proposed actions to achieve the wilderness objective include placing wilderness boundary signs, limiting group size to 15 persons, removing unnecessary range improvements, providing for wildlife operations in wilderness including annual surveys and maintenance and development of waters, attempting to acquire wilderness inholdings if they become available, and limiting prescribed bums in wilderness to those occurring by natural ignitions. 6. Social Environment Objective The social environment objective is to maintain or improve the current range of open-space recreation opportunity settings (rural, semi-primitive motorized, semi-primitive non-motorized and primitive) that provide existing recreational activities on the Muleshoe. Proposed actions to achieve the social environment objective include developing pullouts along Jackson Cabin road, constructing visitor kiosk with sign in station at beginning of Jackson Cabin road, developing informational recreational brochures, maintaining and improving hunting opportunities, pursuing legal public access as identified in Safford RMP, implementing road closures in the Safford RMP, and maintaining Jackson Cabin and Soza Mesa roads to 4x4 standard. |
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