Restoration

Rio Grande Return’s Restoration Program continues to blossom and gain a leading role in restoration efforts throughout New Mexico. Restoration Director, Reid Whittlesey, has over a decade of on-the-ground experience in restoration practices and techniques since he began working in the field of ecological restoration in 2009.

The Restoration Program is grounded in utilizing low-tech process-based methods for restoring degraded environments and is guided by a philosophy that a holistic and minimally invasive approach is the best way to restore our environment. Some of our most successful restoration projects utilize low-tech process-based tools such as beaver dam analogs (BDAs) and post-assisted log structures. As stewards of the land, by implementing such techniques and instilling our philosophy within the conservation community it is our hope that nature will be able to heal its rapidly deteriorating environments and flourish under its own capacity for self-renewal with the alleviation of degrading forces and minimal interventions of restoration.