ABSTRACT
In 1948, the U.S. Forest Service introduced sweeping grazing reductions in
the El Rito Ranger District in the Carson National Forest in northern New
Mexico. The restrictions transformed a subsistence economy organized
around irrigated agriculture and the communal use of upland rangelands
and forests into a wage-dependent economy based on commercial forestry.
The change was based on a 1947 case study in which local forest rangers
claimed that smallholder Hispanic sheepherders ‘‘caused surrounding
national forest ranges to become depleted of vegetative cover to such an extent that a reduction in permitted grazing use is necessary.’’1 The district
proposed to remedy the economic hardship anticipated by the ‘‘stock
reduction program’’ by increasing timber-related jobs through the creation
of a special sustained yield timber production unit.
