HISTORY

The 238,000 acre Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site was formed in 1982, mostly through eminent
domain condemnation of generational ranch land and forced removal of family ranchers.

At the time, the Army pledged it would not conduct live fire exercises or seek more land in
the future. The first promise was broken in military overreach following 9/11. Then in 2006
Not 1 More Acre! uncovered the Pentagon’s permission and supporting authorizations to
expand the PCMS area—by 418,000 acres in a first phase, leading ultimately to 7 million acres.

The Pentagon’s plans are politically supported by the influential private military contracting
industry and fiercely opposed by the ranching community, environmentalists, archaeologists,
educators and others in a broad alliance of supporters across the nation.

Not 1 More Acre! and Grassland Trust were formed
to oppose expansion plans by the Pentagon and its
contractors.

In addition to the loss of such uniquely important fragile habitat and irreplaceable
historical and scientific treasures at untold cost to American taxpayers, military
expansion would also mean the loss of rural communities, long-established economic
and social connections, and multi-generational ranches and families who have helped
preserve and sustain this outstanding bioregion for well over 100 years.

The region under threat contains:

• some of the richest concentrations of the human record in the American West, reflecting
  12,000 years of human experience in the region;
• unique bioregions of canyonlands, forested mesas, grasslands and riparian systems
  providing habitat for diverse flora and fauna found nowhere else on Earth and the largest block
  of native prairie remaining on the High Plains;
• restored Dust Bowl lands – Comanche, Kiowa and Rita Blanca National Grasslands —
  offering robust safe haven to threatened and endangered species of plants and animals,
  including rare insects and reptiles yet to be named;
• wild rivers and complex wetlands vital to native fish, migrating birds, unique wildlife and
  environmental health;
• Santa Fe National Historic Trail, the 19th century transportation route that connected
  Missouri with Santa, Fe, New Mexico, with historic ranches, stage stops and trading
  posts illustrative of the American Southwest;
• the longest “dinosaur freeway” in North America, marking where 150 million years ago
  many different species of dinosaurs traveled along the shoreline of an interior seaway from
  present-day Colorado to New Mexico and Oklahoma.