Valle Vidal Protected

You probably didn’t notice, what with all the attention on the Iraq Study Group and stranded mountain climbers, that President Bush signed a wilderness bill last week -- the Valle Vidal Protection Act, which protects more than 100,000 acres in northern New Mexico’s Carson National Forest.

Of course, he didn’t do it on a whim. It took a three-year campaign by the Sierra Club and a local coalition of business groups, local governments, hunters, anglers, outfitters. Valle Vidal -- a series of rolling high-country valleys in the Sangre de Christo Mountains -- had been targeted by the Bush administration for coalbed methane drilling. Read more.