by April Reese, Land Letter

LAS CIENEGAS NATIONAL CONSERVATION AREA, Ariz. -- Atop a rocky hill in the heart of this mountain-ringed expanse of undulating grasslands and cottonwood-lined creeks, rancher Mac Donaldson gestures toward a stretch of bottomlands below.

"All kinds of wildlife move through here," said Donaldson, whose 1,500 head of cattle share forage with pronghorn, mule deer and other ungulates. Mountain lion, javelina and black bear also migrate through the area, which links mountain ranges to the south and north. A mile or two away, the creek supports several threatened or endangered species, including the Gila top minnow, southwestern willow flycatcher and the lesser long-nosed bat.

"The plant and animal community in this part of the country is absolutely amazing," said Karen Simms, ecosystem planner for the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area.

Congress designated the 42,000-acre conservation area in 2000 with the intent of protecting this wildlife highway -- the largest binational wildlife corridor in the United States -- while ensuring that grazing, hunting and other uses would continue.

"We're going for holistic resource management," said Donaldson, who is part of a local collaborative group that provides input on the management of the lands, formerly part of the Empire Ranch.

And yet the conservation area, sprawling between two mountain ranges about an hour's drive southeast of Tucson, is something of an orphan among public lands. The area is part of BLM's National Landscape Conservation System, established by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in 1996 to denote BLM's most ecologically and historically important lands. But the system, which also includes Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, Headwaters Forest Preserve in California, the Lewis and Clark Trail and more than 800 other conservation areas, historic trails, national monuments and wilderness areas, could be dissolved by a future Interior secretary. With that in mind, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva (D) and New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D) have introduced legislation in their respective chambers to make the system permanent.