Farmer and bird life preserved in Corrales

Humans often focus on their own habitat, developing homes wherever they please without regard to the surrounding animal life or agricultural heritage, but Corrales has these things in mind while trying to develop.

The village of Corrales, a place where agriculture leads the community forward while also appreciating the old, recently worked with New Mexico Land Conservancy to preserve agricultural heritage and migratory bird habitat. The trails near the bosque in Corrales as well as some old-generation farms are stopover habitat for migrating birds.

Corrales gets sandhill cranes that migrate in the winter and many other smaller species including goldfinches, towhees and various ducks or geese.

"The village has partnered with the Nature Conservancy to protect the Bosque Preserve and thus provide for bird habitat. Funds have been set aside to purchase farmland conservation easements to help perpetuate farming in the village," Corrales Mayor James Fahey said.

According to USDA, agricultural land easementshelp private and tribal landowners, land trusts and other entities such as state and local governments protect croplands and grasslands on working farms and ranches by limiting non-agricultural uses of the land through conservation easements.

"We have large areas of open space that provide habitat because of the density mandated by our ordinance, one house per one or two acres, depending on the location in the village," Fahey added.

A recent voter-approved bond measure allowed NMLC to help the village to keep its rural nature. The bond measure will allow the village to invest $2 million in easements, which will in turn protect farmland from subdivision and high-end housing project development.

"Though residential development has taken place here at breakneck speed, we've always grown our own food in this part of the Rio Grande Valley, from pre-contact pueblos to our recent ancestors to our new farmers," Corrales Farmland Preservation and Agriculture Commission member Lisa Brown said.

Brown added that it helps small farmers gain access to land, which she says is one of the greatest challenges for them.

For more information on Corrales, visit corrales-nm.org/.