Funding for New Mexico in Focus is provided by Viewers Like You >> Nash: This year on New Mexico in Focus we packed up our gear and headed out into the field more than ever before.

>> Emerson: I was getting a phone call and so I picked it up, it was my mom she was screaming over the phone.

“The water is coming and it's getting higher by the second.” So I ran over to my sister, I was like, “We need to get somewhere to hide.” >> Nash: Tonight we show you some of our favorite stories from beyond the studio in 2025.

New Mexico in Focus starts now.

Thanks for joining us this week and happy holidays to those who celebrate, I'm Nash Jones.

As we wrap up 2025, in just a few short days, we're going to take some time this week and next to revisit what our team and you, based on what you watched the most, saw as some of our best work this year.

Something our team prioritized these last 12 months was getting out of the studio and into the community more often.

And in turn bringing you to corners in New Mexico you may not have otherwise seen.

Like the floods in Ruidoso, Burn Scar in San Miguel County, and the Cibola National Forest.

In the past, many of these stories that you'll see tonight may have been presented as studio interviews, and we've been pleased to show you some more dynamic video and storytelling.

That's thanks in part to in Focus multimedia journalist Cailley Chella, who joined our team over the summer.

Tonight, we'll look back at how she covered the story of New Mexico legalizing psychedelic mushrooms for medical use earlier this year.

But Cailley didn't get to have all the fun, I got out from behind this desk and into the community a little myself.

I visited the State Fair, No Kings Protests, and my old stomping grounds over at KUNM.

But the most impactful trip I took, without a doubt, was to the Mescalero Apache Reservation.

Back in August, the tribe hosted one of more than a dozen community meetings put on by the public Education department.

They were meant to gather input on the state's most recent effort to finally get into compliance with court orders under the Yazzie Martinez Educational Equity ruling.

For context, a judge ruled in 2018 that the state was violating the state constitution by failing to provide a sufficient education to kids in certain already at risk groups.

Those include students with disabilities, those living in poverty, English language learners, and Native Americans.

Earlier this year, the court found the state is still falling short in order PED to create a plan to make that required progress.

The meetings informed that remediation plan, which PED submitted last month.

In August, I attended one of the meetings in Mescalero in southeastern New Mexico.

Throughout the three hour event, a few needs came up repeatedly; incorporate indigenous cultural traditions into the school day, provide safe and reliable transportation in rural districts, and offer an education in native languages in history.

This is the Inn of the Mountain Gods.

A resort and casino on the Mescalero Apache Reservation.

And behind me happening right now is one of those community feedback meetings to get the state back on track with the Yazzie Martinez case.

This is particularly important that it's happening on tribal land, because native students are one of the key groups that the state was found to be failing.

The event is kind of cafe style.

You'll see, people are coming and going.

A few people are enjoying dinner right now, and they're giving the state feedback at roundtables, hosted and facilitated by the LANL Foundation, a partner of the public Education department in this work.

The event was noisy as about 50 attendees spoke passionately at the various tables.

There were groups discussing funding and accountability, cultural and language education, and student supports and teaching.

We overheard former student and Mescalero Apache tribal member Ariel Aguilar at one of the tables, and asked her to step out into the hall to hear more about why she was there.

She echoed several of the needs that emerged is particularly salient for the Mescalero Apache community.

>> Aguilar: And I've had ideas of making a Mescalero Apache history class at my tribe's school at Mescalero Apache High School because we learned in every state you learn the state's history.

For example, in New Mexico history, you learn U.S.

history.

And I thought to myself, why don't we have Mescalero Apache history?

So but of course, making sure that the development of that curriculum, it would be developed by a tribal member.

>> Nash: She'd also like to see lessons on tribal government.

Aguilar had attended both public and tribally controlled schools in New Mexico.

She says many Mescalero Apache students go to public schools in the surrounding communities, and the classroom lessons are very different.

>> Aguilar: I would just say the culture is more reinforced in tribal schools.

You're allowed to do things like pray.

Pray before school starts.

You can engage in community service that involves being a part of traditional ceremonies.

So if you go help cook at a feast, or if you go help, cut wood, maybe the boys help cut wood and make an arbor.

You're allowed to do that in tribal schools on the reservation, whereas at public schools they really don't have the same sort of policies that allow students to engage in cultural activities.

>> Nash: Aguilar said she's also concerned that without intervention in K-12 schools, the Apache language could disappear over the next few decades.

A sentiment many in attendance shared.

Ideas about what that language education should look like, though varied.

President of the Mescalero Apache Tribe Thora Padilla says it should be experiential and culturally rooted.

>> Padilla: I really think we need to do more as far as not just putting a word up on a wall and saying it over and over, you know, but taking them out to do traditional activities.

You know, we are named Mescalero, the people who eat mescal, the agave plant, the century plant, you know, taking them out and go collecting, instructing them in Apache.

You got the action going with it, digging out the mescal.

>> Nash: High school principal at Mescalero Apache schools.

Rosalinda Baeza says PED should provide the school more support to build out its language curriculum.

>> Baeza: Just giving the money is just the first step.

There's, over there you hear a lot of them talk about language, and the cultural teachers, they need help with, curriculum writers.

There's a lot of people that speak the language, the elders, but they're not necessarily certified teachers.

And then there's some of the people that are fluent, they don't know how to put a curriculum together.

So like one of the challenges at our school right now is we have a K-12 school, but the curriculum doesn't build upon itself.

>> Nash: She also voiced common concerns over transportation in one of the roundtable discussions.

>> Baeza: I've got a lot of money coming to our school for career technology education.

But the transportation has to be provided for some of these things that we put together.

And so I know that as a principal I've gotta look at ways to try to help my students get to these events.

>> Nash: She told me she's grateful that the Yazzie Martinez lawsuit has led to increased funding.

Remembering early on in her career when the school had far fewer resources, which was apparent in the curriculum that lacked electives and in the physical learning space itself.

>> Baeza: And our students were going to these portables that were- there was no heat in them.

I bought myself a little heater, and I'd go and I plug it in and hope that it was warm.

I remember teaching and I could see the breath coming out and we were freezing and shivering.

And we were in those portables for two years.

It was so bad the rats were coming in.

>> Nash: The tribe has since built the school, and for the last three years it's received state funding through PED's Innovation Zones initiative, something it has to apply for each year.

>> Baeza: We have money all of a sudden for woods, welding, culinary, our film and video production class, our agriculture class.

We have a brand new, greenhouse.

And so my concern is, right now we're getting all of this money because of Yazzie Martinez.

But is there going to come a time again where that funding stops and we're back to square one?

We finally have made some gains with funding for our students.

And I don't want to see that go away.

So it's a concern of mine.

>> Nash: Baeza says despite the influx of resources, her school is no poster child for the public education department complying with Yazzie Martinez, which a court found in April that it's not.

>> Baeza: So I just want to make sure that I'm on the right side and that I'm highlighting what the funding is doing and how it's improving my school, and not that I'm proof that the state is doing what they're saying they're doing.

>> Nash: Because you feel like the state has a long way to go?

>> Baeza: Yes, a long way to go.

>> Nash: Principal Baeza said PED coming to the tribe to talk about what's needed gives her some hope, but she wants to see the action plan that comes out of it.

The department must submit a draft plan to the court by October 1st, and a final remediation plan by November 3rd.

>> Baeza: I see a lot of us getting together, educators, leaders.

You've got tribal council in their school board members.

You have parents in there, and we all talk about these things, but there's no action that happens.

And so we talked about accountability in there.

>> Nash: Throughout the meeting I heard from tribal Council members and others that while pleased that PED is engaging them on what more is needed, concern persists about whether real systemic change will result.

I sat down with New Mexico Education Secretary Mariana Padilla as the event concluded in the ballroom cleared out.

She'd heard that feedback, too.

>> Padilla: I really take that seriously, because I know that the work that we're doing every day is very focused on those things.

And we know we've increased funding.

We know that we've initiated new programs.

We know that we are addressing our teacher shortages.

We know that we're really addressing, teacher quality.

But if they're not seeing that in their community and in their school, then there's a problem.

>> Nash: While Mescalero Apache schools are tribally controlled, and some other native students across the state attend Federal Bureau of Indian Education schools, secretary Padilla says that her agency's plan will support each of those jurisdictions in providing an equitable education.

>> Padilla: They're all our kids and if we're not serving them together, we're not doing our jobs.

And so, at the public education department, it's our job to make sure that we're supporting that, that we're teaching people about what that looks like.

That we're engaging with them and also, holding them accountable when it's not happening.

>> Nash: And can Yazzie Martinez compliance impact those inequities?

>> Padilla: That's the intent really of the lawsuit is to address all of those things we want to really look at.

And we talked about it tonight.

We want to talk about what what funding is needed.

And obviously we've increased funding by, you know, several billion dollars in this administration for K-12 education.

But whether or not we're really tracking to see where that money is being spent, is important.

>> Nash: It's been seven years since the Yazzie Martinez ruling came down.

And despite funding increases and past plans the state remains out of compliance.

So why should New Mexicans believe the Education Department's latest effort will be any different?

>> Padilla: I think what we've done up till now has prepared us for this moment.

And I think that the approach that we're taking and that we're doing these community convenings, the way that they're organized, the way we're deeply engaged, the way we're bringing in outside experts to help us do this work as well.

It is a different process.

>> Nash: Plaintiffs in the case had asked the court to put the Legislative Education Study Committee in charge of the plan.

But State District Judge Matthew Wilson denied the motion.

Since the LESC isn't party to the case, instead, its director, John Sena, says the committee is partnering with PED on the plan.

>> Sena: The committee, which is made up of members and its staff, study education on a year round basis.

So in regard to Martinez Yazzie, we've been trying to help the committee understand its responsibility in helping the state to address the findings in the case more broadly.

>> Nash: Sena says the committee will also help compile the community feedback and the plan itself.

He says the committee's stake in the work is, in part, the massive investments the legislature has made in education over the last few years.

>> Sena: And sometimes there's a feeling that maybe that money isn't making as big a difference as folks would like.

And so I think that accountability is what we're hearing here, to make sure that the money that is going out is being used appropriately and effectively for kids.

>> Nash: Education Secretary Padilla says while court ordered she's excited to be going through the process and supports what she called its fast timeline, especially because the agency will have the plan in time for January's legislative session, when it'll request the budget to carry it out.

And if, after this latest plan is finalized PED yet again, fails to meet the demands under Yazzie Martinez, Padilla says the fingers shouldn't be pointed solely at her department.

>> Padilla: You know, we always talk about shared accountability.

The public education department is accountable for a whole host of things, but so is the legislature.

So are our schools.

So are our school leaders.

So are our higher ed institutions as I mentioned, when it comes to our educator prep, we all have a role to play in really making changes for our school system and for our students.

So I take that very seriously.

I don't think accountability is a bad word.

>> Nash: In the meantime, attendees who got the chance to bend the state's ear about educational inequities for native students and their ideas for improvements told me they appreciated the education department taking interest in their perspectives this time around and coming to their community to hear them out.

>> Aguilar: I really want to help.

If I can say anything, do anything, and share my experience in a way that will help us save our language and a big part of our culture, I'm glad to do it.

So I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak to those that are higher up in terms of education and give them my experience, and hopefully it really tells people that we really need more assistance.

So I really appreciate it.

>> Nash: Thanks, Ariel and appreciate your perspective.

>> Aguilar: Thank you.

>> Nash: Since that story aired, PED submitted a draft and then a final action plan.

Bella Davis reports for New Mexico in Depth that plaintiffs argued the plan is, quote, “Thoroughly inadequate.” A judge earlier this month granted a motion to give the plaintiffs until mid-February to respond.

They intend to file substantial objections, according to the motion.

In July, a catastrophic flood hit the Ruidoso area, a part of New Mexico that was still healing from last year's wildfires.

The deadly storm killed three people, tore into businesses and homes, and displaced hundreds.

Reporter Cailley Chella brought us to the southeastern New Mexico village just hours after the flood, and days before the governor declared a disaster in Lincoln County.

In this small window of time, Cailley spoke to Ruidoso's mayor as well as residents of a mobile home park who lost their homes and almost lost their lives.

>> Jason: Hey!

It's coming from here!

>> Emerson: But if my mom didn't call us, we would have died.

If I didn't close the doors, we would have died.

If I wasn't with my sister, she would have died.

>> Cailley: It's a cloudy Thursday morning in Ruidoso, as 13 year old Emerson Fulcher recounts the flooding that took his home and almost his life.

>> Jason: This boy's a hero.

He saved himself.

He saved his sister, and then, miraculously, was able to pull a couple of our pets out of it as well.

>> Cailley: When the fatal floodwaters rushed into the village just over two weeks ago, Emerson had just minutes to react.

>> Emerson: I was getting a phone call and so I picked it up.

It was my mom, and she she was screaming over the phone, “The water is coming and it's getting higher by the second.” So I ran over to my sister.

I was like, we need to get somewhere high.

So we ran into her room.

We hopped on to the bed and then we start hearing, like, bubbling.

While this we're still on the phone with my mom.

She's like, I love you, I love you.

And she's like, saying goodbye.

I'm like, oh my gosh, this is serious.

And so, I mean, we were floating there and eventually we got to like 2 or 3ft before, you know, the roof crushed us in the water, drowned us.

>> Cailley: As Emerson told me his story, another flood notification came in through our phones.

The sound still haunts him.

It's something many in Ruidoso also deal with.

>> Emerson: I mean it's straight out of a horror movie.

I mean, imagine just a Amber alert alarm going off constantly.

>> Cailley: Meanwhile, his dad was forced to wait outside, helplessly watching for any sign of life.

>> Jason: I mean, I hate to say it, but we were waiting for the kids to get sucked out of a window or a wall.

>> Cailley: The tourists staying at Riverview RV Park may not have been as familiar with the flood warnings, may not have recognized the imminent danger they were in.

>> Jason: This is my headboard.

And this wall fell down and crushed my bed.

>> Cailley: Three died, including two children.

>> Jason: We had loss of life on this property.

We're just so blessed and thankful that we came out of this with our kids, because it didn't look like that was going to be the case.

>> Cailley: When the waters came rushing downhill, on July 8th, it marked the second such flood in just a 12 month span.

That all comes on the heels of catastrophic wildfires that left a massive burn scar and created the conditions for this kind of flooding.

>> And as you can see, you can see the watermark.

>> Cailley: Just a few minutes down the road in Gavilan Mobile Home Park, Vendama George's home, met a similar fate.

On vacation with her husband in India, she watched from thousands of miles away as the flood wreaked havoc on the house.

They were still working to restore after last year's flood.

>> George: We actually finished our remodeling, if you take a look, you can see like our paint and everything is new and all the windows, doors, everything is brand new.

>> Cailley: This is what remains for many families at Gavilan in Mobile Home Park.

Ruined belongings, shattered windows and moldy walls.

>> Olivas: Totaled The trailers totaled.

My Audi totaled, everything.

Monda Milton and her husband, Don have managed the mobile home park for 14 years.

Milton says her tenants, like Arturo Olivas, have become family.

>> Olivas: The manager married me and my wife.

>> Milton: When my husband would get an elk in hunting or a deer, he would cut off the hind quarter and take it to their house.

And that's the kind of people that are in our park.

We provide for the ones in need.

>> Cailley: Now 72 years old and living with multiple health issues, Milton says she's mostly worried about her neighbors.

>> Milton: Seeing them devastated has been real hard on me.

It has.

I see their pain.

I see what they've lost.

And a lot of them were pretty darn poor.

>> Cailley: Some tenants were able to stay with nearby friends Others were given temporary housing at a local hotel.

>> Milton: Everybody's been trying to get us to retire for a long time Friends and family.

So now we're pushed into that retirement.

And, my husband gets Social security and I get a small check of $520 of Social Security.

So we've got to find a place we can afford.

>> Cailley: Average rent for a two bedroom apartment in Ruidoso is about $2,000 a month.

Compare that to just the few hundred dollars residents were paying at Gavilan.

>> Milton: There are people here that need the HUD housing and there's no where to go.

>> Cailley: HUD is short for the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The federal agency responsible for making sure Americans have equal access to an affordable place to live.

The Department also helps communities recover after natural disasters.

>> Milton: I don't want to leave here.

This is my home.

>> Cailley: Still, Reed also hasn't given up hope.

>> Reed: My country hasn't let me down before.

I'm all red, white and blue.

And I have faith.

>> Cailley: And Milton has had a little extra help.

>> Milton: She flew in on wings, let me tell you.

Going to find resources where you can go and motels.

You can stay in places where we can go if we needed to eat something.

And she's so terribly helpful.

>> Cailley: That winged woman is Cynthia Schumacher.

Though she lives about five hours away.

She spent five days and nights in Ruidoso in the immediate aftermath of the flood.

Gathering supplies, organizing resources and lifting spirits.

>> Cynthia: I think it was a God thing, for sure that that led me down there.

I've been going up there since I was a little girl, and I've been taking my son up there since he was a baby.

And I just have a great love for Ruidoso and so that's why I felt the need to go and take donations up there.

And I saw Manda outside with some National Guardsmen.

They were in uniform and she was crying.

And she's like, we just need all the help that we can get.

>> Cailley: Local community foundations have also stepped in to help, doling out $1,000 to those affected and the village's, Mayor Lynn D. Crawford has called on FEMA to help as well.

>> Crawford: We don't have a big huge pot of money for that.

We've got to go to Congress to get the money allocated so that we can try to stop all of this stuff, or at least do our best to slow it down in the future.

>> Cailley: On July 23rd, 15 day after the fatal flood and a month after the first severe flooding of the year, FEMA stepped in to assist.

The agency will help with grants for temporary housing and home repairs.

Low cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs.

Still, the residents I spoke to were frustrated, questioning why officials haven't done more to keep people safe.

>> Reed: Why did they invest so much money in these barriers when they could have got the people out?

>> We were under the assumption and the impression from the village that they had spent millions and millions of dollars on mitigation efforts, and, I mean, we felt like we were left to drown.

Last year we applied for the buyback program.

We applied for the Hesco barrier bags.

We applied for the grants.

We applied for the loans, and we were just left to do it all on our own.

And we did.

We got little we got, I don't know, 7 or 8000 bucks from FEMA >> Cailey: since last year's fires and flooding, the village has put new physical barriers in place.

>> Crawford: We put up, into in our sales program, a lot of hesco baskets that were used to be as barriers against the water when it jumps the banks of the river.

Also Jersey barriers, concrete blocks.

And we have done things with desilting trying to distribute the water out into wider paths to take that power out of it.

And we just didn't have time nor the money to get it done.

>> Cailley: They've also begun work on a buyout program to get homeowners out of unsafe areas, but with limited resources.

Much has yet to be realized.

>> Crawford: That's what FEMA does.

Well, then we've got to go to Congress to get the money allocated.

We initially requested about $250 million for that.

We were told there was going to be about one hundred million, 137 appropriated for that.

>> Cailley: last year.

The village urged residents to get flood insurance, and in March, Ruidoso posted a flood map showing which properties were most at risk.

So Monday's home was about here, but there were homes in the park that went all the way back into the floodway.

This blue area and the purple is the plain.

And then down the street at Riverview RV Park.

This is about where Jason Emerson's home was.

But they had RVs that extended all the way into the floodway.

And then if you zoom out to see the entire neighborhood, you can see that it's only really along the river of homes that are affected.

But some say they were never made aware of the danger.

>> I mean, you think my wife and I would have ever left our kids in the house if we didn't think it was safe?

>> Cailley: And others were simply unableto afford the insurance.

Much less a move.

>> Reed: We couldn't get flood insurance, especially in that trailer park.

Last year, the price of moving the trailer out of there was $2,000.

I don't know who got the bright idea to raise the price to $10,000 per trailer to where I couldn't afford it.

>> Cailey: Mayor Crawford is aware of the problem, but says his hands are tied without money from the feds.

>> Crawford: Everybody wants you to walk up and hand them a check so they can move to some other place.

It doesn't work that way.

>> Cailley: He says Ruidoso is just a small part of a much bigger problem.

>> Crawford: If we don't get Ahold of this, this whole Western part of the United States is going to go up.

The weather is changing.

>> Cailley: Despite the uncertainty with the changing climate, Crawford still insists Ruidoso is a safe place for residents to live and tourists to visit.

>> Crawford: People are walking their dogs, the pickleball courts, if they're dry, they're playing pickleball.

The golf course is being played.

People are going on with their lives.

It's one portion of the community that we need to fix, and that's the point that we're trying to.

It's a safe community if you're paying attention.

So, you know, of course we belong here.

And of course, it's going to endure.

I promise you, you know, in 3 to 5 years will be brand new.

>> Cailley: Generally in New Mexico, rain is welcomed, even celebrated, as it's often sorely needed.

But, in Ruidoso it's different.

>> There's nothing safe here dude.

Nothing.

>> Cailley: Storm clouds now stir anxiety.

For some, the sound of thunder can trigger their PTSD.

[Thunder] >> Cailey: While I was there on the 17th.

The floodwaters rose again.

So I just got back to my room.

And it's interesting because they sent out multiple emergency messages over the phone.

But the first one came maybe half an hour ago.

Nothing happened.

The next one came.

Was raining a little bit, but not much.

And then all of a sudden, Woosh feet of water.

And all around me.

Residents wrestled with the same uncertainty.

Unsure how or where to even begin moving forward.

>> We are so blessed that we have our children, but like, we don't know what to do next.

>> Cailley: As is so often the case in the immediate aftermath of these increasingly common disasters.

The story that I found here ranged from anger and frustration to optimism and gratitude, from families navigating uncertain futures together, and those who are risking their lives for each other to neighbors who are going the extra mile to help out.

This mountain town story is one of resilience and heartbreak, but also of unyielding hope in Ruidoso So I'm Cailley Chella, reporting >> Nash: Thanks to Cailley for her coverage of the floods.

We'll bring you more of her field reporting later in the show.

Three years after the largest wildfire in state history.

Recovery for people who live in and around the Hermits Peak Calf Canyon burn scar continues to move slowly.

That's also where things stand for scientists working to help the forest recover.

The fire burned more than 340,000 acres of spruce, fir and ponderosa pine.

The U.S.

Forest Service has already started replanting seedlings in several of the burned areas to help bring the forest back.

This spring, in Focus correspondent Elizabeth Miller brought us to one of those replanting sites outside Las Vegas at Johnson Mesa.

She caught up with researchers Andre Toka from New Mexico State University and Christopher Marsh from UNM to talk about how those seedlings were doing, what challenges they faced, and how their research aims to help more trees survive and seed the forest of the future.

>> Miller: This is the edge of the Hermits Peak Calf Canyon wildfire.

As big as this burned area looks, it's a small part of the entire acreage that went up in flames three years ago.

Getting it to look like a forest again is going to require human intervention, which is why so much research is being done in New Mexico about how to make the most of a very limited supply of seeds and seedlings and people to replant trees.

>> Toca: There are two options, right?

One is we leave the forest regenerate on its own.

The second one would be reforestation.

Problem with leaving the forest regrow.

The ecological succession would take over and we would get this forest that we all appreciate within the next 3 to 400 years.

So it takes a long time to grow and mature forest that provides the services that we all enjoy.

Things like clean water, hiking areas, timber, firewood, hunting, fishing, any of those things that we enjoy.

So that is not an option for us.

We need to plant seedlings and, try to restore the forest.

Has it was or similarly, >> Marsh: if we're rerforesting a landscape like this, first of all, we need seed.

And that seed is hard to get.

That normally involves teams of people who go and scout, ponderosa pine trees within, the same kind of area, finding them when the cones are still green, picking those cones by climbing trees, drying those cones, extracting that seed.

And then those seeds go to places like the Jonty Harrington Forest Research Center in Mora A grown into seedlings, which are typically one season old, then given to a planning crew who go out and plant large landscapes like this.

>> Toca: for reforestation.

After, such large, large scale fire, we cannot be reactive.

We need to prepare ahead of time and collect those seeds and have them ready for whenever fire might happen.

So once we have those seed sources from, a locally, adapted, trees, then we can grow those seedlings in the, nurseries.

And that's where the second step comes, which is growing the highest quality of seedlings that we can.

>> Marsh: There's bottlenecks at each of those, connections and seed source, which are climatically suitable for environments like this, are quite hard to come by, but also without the shade of the surviving trees.

It's a much hotter and drier environment in big burn scars like this.

than it would be if there were surviving trees.

So those seedlings need to be particularly hardy and, be able to cope with a lot of different climate extremes, if that's from real cold snaps like we see here at high elevations or very dry periods, like we see in areas like the Los Conchas burn area, >> Toca: JTH, Forestry Research Center is quite unique because we, have a tight relationship between the research that we do and the production line so we can apply what we learned.

Immediately.

My job there is to study, stress resistance mechanisms in seedlings and more importantly, how to implement that in the nursery so that seedlings come to the field prepared to deal with those high temperature drought and cold.

So we're talking about, root development, for example, we're trying to promote early and fast root growth, which will increase their chance chance of survival.

We are, also trying to, grow seedlings that have a higher percentage of root mass.

So they're when they're exposed to sunlight, they do not demand so much water.

They don't get dry.

Basically because of so much leaf area.

There are many other physiological mechanisms that, seedlings develop.

And what we try is to have them develop those mechanisms early on in the nursery, so they do not have to go out in the field.

>> Miller: What kind of seedling survival rate do we see when we try to replant after some of these big wildfires?

>> Marsh: Half of our problem that we have in the southwest with our reforestation effort is those seedling survival rates are really variable and site dependent.

2015 study, which looked at multiple planning sites.

So after a high severity burns had an average seedling survival of 25%.

In some of those areas, they saw survival of 70%, some they saw none.

And that average is like a real mix.

So figuring out.

What, elements within those sites govern that seedling survival can help us learn, and apply the lessons that we learned from those different sites to different areas and hopefully increase the seedling survival rates in all reforestation areas.

>> Miller: And this is microclimate.

>> Marsh: This is microclimate.

>> Miller: What is microclimate?

>> Marsh: So microclimates, are places on the landscape which are the hotter or cooler than the prevailing climate.

And that may be based on topography.

North of south facing slopes which receive more solar radiation or sunlight, typically over the period of a year, or areas which funnel water down little valleys and their, wetter and cooler than other areas.

So being able to identify those microclimates, those little micro sites, can be really beneficial for reforestation efforts.

So we can plant on those north facing slopes and in those little gullies which are wetter and cooler.

So when we plant seedlings, we typically put them in a vex or tube, which is, this plastic bit of netting which is biodegradable and it's just to protect it from, browse being eaten by deer or elk just to give it a chance before it formed some woody mass.

And it is protected from that.

So this is our little seedling.

He's only about six months old, and he would have come pretty much straight from the greenhouse around this kind of size.

So he hasn't had much time to grow yet.

But what we did develop to, measure the variables which might predict the survival or growth of this seedling is, these microclimate data loggers that we made at UNM, which measure, soil moisture, air temperature and humidity and light levels at the same sort of scale that, seedlings planted at.

So using, lots of microclimate data loggers and drone imagery, we can model those microclimates over a site and then identify before planting.

Where are we going to see probably the most, seedling survival and highest growth, equally distributing our reforestation resources over that entire burn area, is not likely to lead to good results.

We're probably better off targeting those areas of high seedling probability and planning in those.

Here in this Gamble Oak patch, there's a lot of, leaf matter which retains a lot of soil moisture.

And we can see if we dig this up, there's a lot of moisture in the soil and patches like this.

So this creates its own microclimate, its own little micro site, which is more favorable to, the planted seedlings, retaining that moisture buffering against solar radiation and allowing them to grow a lot faster and survive a lot better.

As we can see from this seedling, who looks pretty happy here in this little, gamble oak patch.

And in 10 to 12 years, those seedlings that we plant will produce their own seed.

And then we can fill in the gaps between those patches of high seedling seedling survival probability, as opposed to trying to blanket the area in seedlings, and spending, a lot of money and a lot of time, chasing the same kind of, tree density.

That was their previously and trying to replace that within one generation.

One of the main driving factors that we see in high severity burns like this one is really high density of, trees.

So typically if we were to look at the the healer wilderness, down south, which is a naturally fine maintained ponderosa pine system, this tree's, much sparser in the density and there's areas without any trees within them.

So when a fire does start, it generally bends at low severity.

But when we have high densities of trees like this and a fire like the hermits peak off canyon, burns, it will burn at high severity, travel very quickly and be crown fire, which is jumping from each tree canopy to the next.

All of the trees which would produce seed for the forest to naturally regenerate.

are now dead.

>> Miller: The forest that comes back is probably not going to look like that carpet of trees that we knew before the fires.

What might it look like instead?

>> Toca: Well, hopefully what it will look like is a mosaic forest.

We will have, a mature forest maybe in about 100 years or so.

But also we want a basically a heterogeneous forest patches where, that have recently burned at the smallest scale, low intensity.

Those will support certain wildlife, certain, services, for the communities down to slow down the drainage and, areas where we will have seed sources so that forest expands into places where we cannot access or perhaps were not planted for, any reason.

So ideally, we want the forest dynamic to come back to a natural region where parts burn but at a lower, intensity.

And that creates a very hot there, a generous forest.

>> Nash: You can watch our full episode from June 6th.

For more information about the recovery effort in northern New Mexico, just search fire season on the NMiF YouTube page.

Now we turn to a different ecosystem the Cibola National Forest.

That is where 69 year old Leslie McIntyre went for a walk on March 2nd and never came home.

A flurry of activity followed as New Mexico Search and Rescue mobilized to look for McIntyre in shifts over the next 36 hours, they didn't find her, and the almost entirely volunteer team suspended the search.

Crews returned to the area in October under the banner of Search and Rescue to look for clues as to what happened to McIntyre, and they took the opportunity to turn the mission into a training exercise.

Again, with correspondent Elizabeth Miller at the helm, our team was there to document how search and rescue works and how dependent it is on all those volunteers.

>> Searles : With the months going by, I realize I'm pretty anxious about just the fact that she's out there someplace and I would like to know where she is and what happened to her.

>> Miller: Search and rescue crews worked from before 8 a.m.

until after 4 p.m.

today, searching for signs of what happened to Leslie McIntyre in March.

>> Searles: She was my friend for 40 years and she was 69.

She lived next door to me for 30, but she had lived in the neighborhood for 45 years, and so we were just good friends.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning, 8:30, I was going out.

I'd take her dog for a walk and she wanted to go with me.

So off we went, and just a third mile up the hill behind where we live.

I suggested she go back because that was enough because I was going to do three more miles with her dog, so she said okay.

So she went back and that was about 9:00 Saturday morning.

So I did my hike for about 50 more minutes and got back with the dog and went to her house, but she wasn't there.

I called the neighbors, but she wasn't there.

And then I drove around a little bit.

After a bit of that, I realized this was going to be more than I can handle.

So I went back to the house and, thought about it for ten minutes and then called 911.

>> Elizabeth: And what do you know about what they found in those first searches?

>> Rachel: Nothing.

They didn't find anything.

I just know she's not here anymore.

>> Laurie: And listen up, because we've got some important stuff you guys need to hear.

Today is a training mission.

At the same time, the mission itself is to go back and revisit a case where a woman went missing and at this point, we're looking for evidence that she might be still in the area that we searched.

Normally when a mission is called, it is fast and furious within an hour.

We've got this set up already, and we've got ground teams that are needing to get out in the field, so everything is fast forwarded to an hour, rather than this type of a procedure where we've had two months to put people in slots and get the planning done, we have invited all the teams that were involved in the actual mission back in March, which was 13 teams, and we have probably 100 responders here today between incident management team and the teams that are out in the field.

And normally that would be hard to get within an hour.

We call people in and these are all volunteers.

And so therefore they might be at work, they might be at soccer practices with their kids.

A lot of times it's at night and we're searching at night.

So depending on what someone has going on, the next morning, they may or may not be able to come to a mission.

In this case, people have rearranged their schedules and they've checked and rechecked, and we've got a lot more responders than what we would normally have.

>> Steve: So when the call came You know we we hammered that this this immediate circle where there is a high probability.

And so, A lot of the search has now expanded way beyond.

That's kind of what we're doing today.

We're looking at the extremes of what could happen.

Did she hike 20 miles?

We don't know.

Probably not.

But maybe.

Is anyone not ready?

Ready down here.

Search.

>> Melvin: So our main goal here ground coverage.

The more square footage that we can cover, the better it is.

A search for a person that we would be looking for like that might respond back to us, or some would be yelling and and sort of following trails and stuff like that.

Now we're just, we're looking even in the most tiny little places.

>> Elizabeth: Were you out with the initial search in March?

>> Melvin: I was, I was on operation two.

Yeah.

>> Elizabeth: That was the overnight one?

>> Melvin: Yes.

>> Elizabeth: Well how was that.

>> Melvin: I think was a 12 hour So I got back to instant base at 6 a.m.

it's very cold.

It snowed.

It was dark.

You get the adrenaline rush when you're driving into a base and then just sort of hold you over.

The entire night is really, really difficult.

So you just start thinking about, like, man, we got to get this done now, and that can sort of affect your searching.

So, you know, on this, I'm a lot more focused.

I'm able to just sort of focus on I'm looking for even the smallest thing, like a, you know, a bone, a tiny little one.

>> Brad: Real quick.

If you come across bones, you're not sure what they are.

Take a picture of each.

>> Bob: Historically, through the years, we have very few large missions because we resolved most our missions within the last five within the first 12 hours, so we don't really get involved with a lot of a large IMT.

So this means that these people need to get out and go learn and train and do this stuff.

We are a highly trained, group of individuals, primarily all volunteers, and they need this training to keep their efficiencies.

We're at our, staging area and getting ready to deploy.

>> Bob: We got called in that day, probably about 20 some odd people.

Searchers have gone out there doing that, but unfortunately no sign of her.

>> Elizabeth: And how do you make the decision that it's time to call off that search?

>> Bob: That's a touchy situation.

So basically, under our law and under our policies, through the DPS, if we have had clues that the subject may not be in our search area anymore or should never been started up or One of the other things we watch out for the safety of our volunteers.

So if we don't find the subject during that time frame, we can actually suspend our mission and come back at a later date if we need to do so.

>> Robert: But note about tracking when you download the app, it will default to high resolution.

When we searched for Leslie in March, we initially searched what we call the 25% rank.

And you can see this actually here.

Each one of these lines is a separate person tracking back then.

So we had searched that 25.

So in today's mission what we're doing that same 25 is still there.

We are searching now the 50 this runs on a server.

They also have an app for iOS and Android.

So every team member has a virtual copy.

We didn't any additional devices for this.

It runs off of their cell phones.

And the best part is if they lose reception, the phone keeps it all.

Prior to five years ago, we used to use paper maps, vellum, which is an overlay like a projector where you would draw with markers.

I still have some of the stuff in my truck.

You would hand draw everything.

You would get mad.

Ever since we moved to this around Covid, we have had multiple occasions where because of what we're observing, because of all of this, we have saved lives.

>> Elizabeth: These new technologies are more effective.

But if the volunteers needed to operate them aren't available during the narrow window of time when a missing person could still be found alive, that tool gets left on the shelf.

>> Bob: We approach every search except for like this training mission as a subject is going to be a alive.

I'm don't ever go into a recovery phase.

Ever.

Survivability is not one of the statistics that I worry about.

We can only respond with what resources are willing to come out and help.

You got to understand in the search and rescue program for State of New Mexico.

I've got about a thousand volunteers throughout the state that are willing to come out and help, but they're all volunteers.

They all have Monday through Friday jobs, and they will provide what they can.

Typically on an incident like this, we might get maybe 5 or 6 people to come out to be able to help.

Needless to say, we typically find our missing subjects during that time frame, so I don't need to go into extended periods.

But then if I want to look at specialized resources drones, helicopters.

>> Brad: If it's a person that's just gone missing, we'll do more of a hasty search.

We'll fly a drone above the trail system, and we'll fly the actual trails.

If it's at night, we can run, flare.

Camera.

Thermal.

Everything red is hot.

Evident.

Search.

It's what.

What might change is we're still doing a area search, but we may fly a little lower elevation and fly slower.

Today we flew west of where the incident base was from her house, and we did an extensive grid search, and we were just looking for any kind of any color which at this point it would be like blue jeans.

Right now here's red's, blue's.

So I could click on that and it will actually show me where that is.

Elizabeth: So what do you think is leading to the delay that it's taking a week for somebody to call you guys to come in?

>> Brad: Well, so that's actually going to change.

it's that kind of a a delay.

That's because the agencies don't want to call us.

We are free resource.

We don't do we don't cost them anything.

But you know, that's a very common problem.

So this past legislative session, there was a law that was passed that now search and rescue gets called.

At the same time, our time frame is probably 30 minutes.

So from the time the state police get called, they contact a incident commander on call.

They determine what kind of resources they would need and then they call the individual teams.

So hopefully that's not going to be an issue.

You know, anymore.

>> Bob: One of the prime factors here kind of resource that we use is canines, we have life line canines, primarily We use, track and trailing and air sent dogs.

>> Berry: Indy is a, single purpose human remains detection dog.

>> Miller: And when you said your dog shows interest, what does that look like?

>> Berry: It can look like different things.

One of the most common ones is the dogs kind of going along, and sudden goes, you know, his nose goes way up and he's like, oh, wait a minute.

And then he stops and kind of starts, you know, looking around, trying to figure out what's going on.

Other times it might be, sharp turn, not not a head up at a sharp turn.

It depends on the dog.

Different dogs do different things, and it's just a natural thing that they do.

And you have to learn what your particular dog does.

Since she's been missing such a long time.

It's been six months, that if she's here, that she's deceased and we're going to probably have scattered skeleton remains because of, predators and birds and such.

>> Laurie: The methodical area searches in the field, those go by one by one.

>> Miller: While some of the debriefing suggests that possible evidence came up from their hours of efforts, they're still without a clear answer.

And it's also possible that they will be back out in the spring running yet another training exercise, searching this ground, trying to find answers.

>> Gaier: We have had some potential things, and the next step is everything that we think might be a part of that.

We are going to turn over to the detective that was in charge of this case.

We're going to take all the debriefing, all the map data, see what was covered.

If another training mission is decided to be in this area, we would we will apply everything we learn from this training mission to make it more effective.

>> Miller: What do you see in the benefit of, like, training mission like this?

>> Pigott: I think it's really good for multiple agencies to come together and see each other and get to work together.

In situations like this, that's where you really build trust between, you know, a group like ours, Albuquerque Mountain Rescue, Cibola Search and Rescue Civil Air Patrol, you know, New Mexico State Police to come together like this, and work together, you know, really builds those bonds and makes us more effective, you know, when, when big missions come out >> Miller: For New Mexico PBS I'm Elizabeth Miller reporting.

>> Nash: As you heard from Elizabeth, search crews may have found some clues.

It'll be up to New Mexico State Police to make sense of what they came up with during the somewhat unusual mission.

Over the summer, New Mexico became the third state to legalize the clinical use of psychedelic mushrooms for patients dealing with trauma and other ailments.

Since the medical Psilocybin Act went into effect in June, state officials have been working to establish the program that will administer the law.

Just this month, the newly formed advisory board met with experts from the Department of Health and announced that they will expedite their timeline by a year with a plan to begin treating patients by the end of 2026.

In this story that first aired in July, reporter Cailley Chella dives into the history of medicinal mushrooms in our state and speaks to a doctor and a pair of advocates about the ways psychedelics can help patients with severe depression and PTSD.

>> Cailley: Psilocybin, or what you might know as magic mushrooms, are now legal in New Mexico, at least in therapeutic settings.

We became just the third state in the nation to legalize it.

And now that law is officially in effect, paving the way for regulated, supervised use of psilocybin to help treat certain health conditions.

>> Orozco: I grew up around ceremony, you know, Native American church, Mexican healers, but I didn't really need it until I was a soldier.

>> Cailley: Joaquin Orozco has long understood the power of psilocybin, but it wasn't until after he developed PTSD while serving in the Army that he found his way back to it.

>> Orozco: I ended up doing a psilocybin ceremony, in Mexico with my family.

There was, three generations of us, and it was really profound in a lot of ways.

One was I was able to release a lot of the a lot of the trauma, a lot of the PTSD.

But just relationally, like, closer relationships with my brothers especially.

It was a really overwhelming experience.

But I felt just raw, like emotionally, I released a lot.

>> Cailley: Psilocybin has a long history of use among indigenous peoples, especially in Mesoamerica.

>> Feinberg: There's archeologic evidence that people in Mexico had been using various kinds of glucogenic and psychedelic substances for a really long time.

The Spanish disapproved, and so it was repressed by the church.

>> Orozco: Mexican mushroom healers were hindering their ability to get converts.

And so, they basically went after all of the mushroom healers.

>> Cailley: And now, after hundreds of years of it being oppressed, Orozco is hoping to help smooth the transfer of indigenous knowledge to Western medicine.

>> Leeman: There's numerous ways that we're all interested in, you know, working with the indigenous population.

>> Cailey: Psilocybin's history in the US is also complex.

President Richard Nixon made it illegal here as part of his war on drugs in the early 1970s, effectively keeping it from being used or even studied in the States.

And he didn't stop there.

>> Feinberg: He encouraged the Mexican authorities to crack down and harass, particularly American kind of hippie, countercultural travelers in Mexico.

>> Cailey: And though it's still illegal federally and federal agents could technically intervene, they haven't.

And so renewed or maybe just sustained interest is reviving psilocybins medical potential.

>> Leeman: We haven't used this It's a group therapy room, but we have a, study plan that would be for a group, group psychedelic therapy.

>> Cailley: Doctor Leeman has been studying psilocybin for two years and says it has a unique ability to heal.

>> Leeman: psilocybin on a chemical level.

It works on any one of the serotonin receptors in the brain.

It increases, synapses.

What that does as far as psychologically, our brain is more receptive to change.

And so there's a time period that may occur after psychedelics therapies that, we have the potential to change our, our behaviors change in the ways that we're relating to the world.

>> Cailley: The treatment is giving hope to those who have tried other therapies with little to no success.

>> Holland: People with, treatment resistant depression, trauma, hopefully substance use disorder.

>> Cailley: Orozco is on the board of the New Mexico Psychedelic Science Society.

Both he and Holland are hoping to be on the soon to be created Medical Psilocybin Advisory Board, which will help guide the program's rollout and make sure it meets New Mexico's unique needs.

>> Holland: Affordable and accessible are very important.

And so when we're talking about underserved communities, we're talking about, you know, people in rural areas, obviously, including our large Native American population, that have dealt with generational trauma and all kinds of, issues over the decades.

>> Cailley: The New Mexico Department of Health is developing the rules and safety guidelines for the program.

Things like clinician training, treatment protocols, and approved settings for the therapy sessions is a thoughtful and specific process.

>> Leeman: We're interested in, actually, in the studies that we're proposing here, to use, peer facilitators, the peer facilitators have been found enormously helpful in addiction and health care.

>> Cailley: And as for how it feels to take psilocybin, there isn't a one size fits all answer.

>> Orozco: It can be an emotional release.

It can be acceptance of something.

It can be a flood of sensations, images, a remembering of, you know, your childhood, of how you felt before something affected you.

>> Holland: It's a very intuitive medicine, so it may not give you what you think you want, but it usually ends up giving you what you need.

>> Cailley: Unfortunately, for those looking for more immediate treatment, the program isn't expected to be up and running until December of 2027 for New Mexico in Focus.

I'm Cailley Chella reporting >> Nash: Thanks to Cailley and Elizabeth Miller for their field reporting this year, which made a huge impact on the kinds of stories we were able to tell.

Thanks also to our production crew for helping bring you closer to the action.

And since I don't shout them out enough on air, no better time than here on our last episode of the year, to say thank you to our hardworking and dedicated producers Jeff Proctor, Lou DiVizio and Antonio Sanchez, who only recently returned from parental leave having welcomed his first child, Celeste, this fall.

Welcome Celeste.

Thanks to the digital team and to master control, getting this program to air each week really does take a village.

I'm also super grateful personally to the whole NMPBS crew for welcoming me to the team this year and helping me settle into this role.

From all of us here at New Mexico in Focus, thank you for watching this year, and we'll look forward to keeping it going in 2026.

For New Mexico PBS I'm Nash Jones until next year.

Stay focused.

Funding for New Mexico in Focus is provided by viewers like you.