A year after catastrophic wildfires scorched more than 900,000 acres across New Mexico in a single fire season, a proposed center designed to meet the state’s current and future reforestation needs is one step closer to becoming a reality.

Earlier this month, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a spending bill for the upcoming fiscal year that earmarked $8.5 million to kickstart the development of the New Mexico Reforestation Center and $1.5 million for revegetation needs in the state.

The funding marks a major milestone in the yearslong effort to create a regional center that would significantly increase reforestation capacity across the Southwest in the critical areas of seed collection and storage, nursery production, and planting – and bring forest management into the 21st century.

A proposal from the team of collaborators developing the NMRC calls for completing the estimated $65 million center over four phases.

The founding NMRC partners include the New Mexico Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources’ Forestry Division, New Mexico Highlands University, New Mexico State University and the University of New Mexico. NMSU serves as the fiscal agent for the funding.

“This funding will launch the New Mexico Reforestation Center to increase the production of climate-smart tree seedlings,” said Sarah Cottrell Propst, secretary of the Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources. “The center will enable the scale-up that is needed to grow and plant trees that can survive in the harsh environment of lands burned by wildfire.”

Funding from the state’s 2024 spending bill goes into effect July 1 and will support the NMRC’s first phase of development, which will focus on land acquisition and infrastructure design.

“That money is articulated for mostly design, assessments and, if needed, purchase of land,” said Leslie Edgar, associate dean of research for NMSU’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences and director of the Agricultural Experiment Station. “With the capacity we need, we must have interstate access, water access, and enough workforce to operate it.”

The NMRC will be designed and constructed to produce up to 5 million tree seedlings per year. Currently, seedling production capacity in New Mexico is at a maximum of 300,000 seedlings per year – far below the 150 million to 390 million needed to replant more than 1 million burned acres across the state, which does not include acres burned in future forest fires.

“This will allow us to really address our backlog of reforestation needs,” said Owen Burney, director of NMSU’s John T. Harrington Forestry Research Center in Mora, who is part of the team developing the NMRC. “We know we’re going to get more catastrophic fires like the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, and we need to build a nursery that allows us to restore forests from both past fires and future ones.”

Last spring, the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire breached the Mora research center’s property, forcing Burney and his staff to relocate a seed bank and 75,000 seedlings to safer locations. The research center was ultimately spared from destruction, but the fire had charred 341,735 acres by the time it was 100% contained in August.

The NMRC’s initial phase will take about a year to complete. A site selection committee appointed by the reforestation center’s governing board identified several potential locations suitable to house the facility. Those potential areas included the vicinities of San Miguel County, the village of Mora, Española/Santa Clara Pueblo, Santa Fe and the Middle Rio Grande Corridor. The initial phase will finalize the site selection using a third-party assessment.

“The NMRC was conceived and designed to support New Mexico’s reforestation goal of having the right tree in the right place for the end of this century, and we are going to accomplish that goal by using advanced seedling production processes and advanced modeling to determine where best to plant which species,” said Matthew Hurteau, professor of biology at UNM, who is also part of the group developing the NMRC.

The NMRC’s subsequent phases will require additional funding sources. However, state and federal lawmakers have expressed interest in investing in the center following last year’s highly destructive wildfire season, according to the NMRC partners, who hope to begin the initial construction phase early next summer.

“Building the New Mexico Reforestation Center is one of the most important things we can do right now to ensure the future of forests throughout New Mexico and the Western United States,” said Joshua Sloan, associate vice president of academic affairs for the Department of Forestry and Reforestation Center at New Mexico Highlands University, who is also part of the team developing the NMRC.

“We’ve had incredible support from our state and federal lawmakers to help make the NMRC a reality, as well as from the leadership of NMSU, NMHU, UNM and the New Mexico Forestry Division,” Sloan continued. “We’re all looking forward to getting construction of the NMRC underway so we can massively scale up our post-fire reforestation efforts for everyone who has been impacted by catastrophic fires across the state.”

An economic analysis prepared by NMSU estimates that the construction of the NMRC facilities would provide a total economic contribution of nearly $100 million, primarily impacting industries associated with construction, architectural and engineering services. Once operational, it would also contribute more than $10 million per year to the state’s economy and support over 100 jobs on an annual basis.