More than a scenic mountain landscape: Valles Caldera National Preserve land use history

Abstract

This study focuses on the cultural-historical environment of the 88,900-acre (35,560-ha) Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) over the past four centuries of Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. governance. It includes a review and synthesis of available published and unpublished historical, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic literature about the human occupation of the area now contained within the VCNP. Documents include historical maps, texts, letters, diaries, business records, photographs, land and mineral patents, and court testimony.This study presents a cultural-historical framework of VCNP land use that will be useful to land managers and researchers in assessing the historical ecology of the property. It provides VCNP administrators and agents the cultural-historical background needed to develop management plans that acknowledge traditional associations with the Preserve, and offers managers additional background for structuring and acting on consultations with affiliated communities.

Titles contained within More than a scenic mountain landscape: Valles Caldera National Preserve land use history

• Chapter 1. Valles Caldera National Preserve land use history
• Chapter 2. A sketch of the cultural-historical environment-Part 1: The pre-Columbian past
• Chapter 3. A sketch of the cultural-historical environment-Part 2: Spanish entradas to the present
• Chapter 4. History of the Baca Location No. 1
• Chapter 5. Plant gathering, game hunting, fishing, mineral collecting, and agriculture
• Chapter 6. Ranching history
• Chapter 7. Industrial timbering
• Chapter 8. Industrial mineral extraction and geothermal exploration
• Chapter 9. The Valles Caldera National Preserve as a multi-layered ethnographic landscape
• Chapter 10. Summary and conclusions
• Appendix I. Annotated bibliography
• Appendix II. Introducing a landscape approach for evaluating communities' traditional senses of time and place
• Appendix III. Perspectives on culture, tradition, vernacular knowledge, and culture change to understand landscape as a cultural process

Citation

Anschuetz, Kurt F.; Merlan, Thomas. 2007. More than a scenic mountain landscape: Valles Caldera National Preserve land use history. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-196. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 277 p.