The Benedictine monks at Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery carry with them a deep reverence for their work: “To love as God loves,” said Brother Santiago, in a video for the U.S. Forest Service.
Yes, the U.S. Forest Service.
For the monks — who reside in a community in western New Mexico right beside the Gila National Forest — that love isn’t just for their fellow man, but for the planet.
This has led them to serve as volunteers in the national forest, where they are behind an effort to bring community members together for one mission: To reduce the risk of wildfires.
The monastery has sat on the forested land near Silver City, New Mexico since the late 1980s — but in the beginning, it needed some restoration.
Due to the impact of both historic mining operations and early settlers, the overgrown conditions of the forest were harming wildlife and presented a fire hazard for the forest — as well as the surrounding community.
“When we first came here, everything was overgrown,” Brother Lawrence, a monk living at the monastery, said in a statement.
“It’s part of the nature of the Benedictine order to restore. We started with 20 acres, and now we have about 600 acres.”
Though attempts have been made to restore the forest by adding new species of trees, these have overtaken the area and become too dense, Brother Santiago said, making it difficult for crews to suppress a fire.
This happened in 2012, when the Whitewater Baldy Fire left fire scars on the forest and impacted the Monastery with long-lasting smoke.
So, outfitted in robes and carrying chainsaws, the monks have taken to tending to the forest with divine care, removing vegetation through controlled burns and fuel reduction efforts, which lessen the threat of wildfires on the property.
“We’re re-managing how we address the forest and its health by using fire as a tool, not just as a destructive element. That’s a very delicate case and it just can’t be done randomly,” Santiago explained.
“It requires that we’re all on the same page working together because it involves everyone.”
Working together requires a myriad of stakeholders. The monks have been champions for the Gila Landscape Collaborative for nearly a decade, bringing the community together to care for the national forest.
They also work alongside Firewise, a program created by the National Fire Protection Association, which provides simple steps for homeowners to make homes safer from fires.
These partnerships are monumental to local and federal forest management agencies.
“The Monastery helped us get ‘buy-in’ from the community to do Firewise work on and adjacent to landowners’ properties,” said Daniel London, the Fuels Planner for the Silver City district of the Gila National Forest.
He added that seeing the monks lead by example helped “teach [the community] the importance of fire hardening around their homes by thinning and clearing brush.”
Essentially, this crew of forest-stewarding monks is a gold standard example to show nearby residents how it’s done.
“The Benedictines have unique perspectives, values, and insights they bring to the table,” London added. “It’s also valuable to have someone outside the government stressing the importance of this work. They live here. They have a special connection to it. They’re some of the best people to share this important message.”
Of course, the Forest Service employs its own expert personnel to manage wildfire prevention on national public lands. But these large-scale communal efforts are vital in protecting the entire landscape of a given area.
“It’s a real crisis. It’s not pretend,” Santiago said, of changing climates and hazardous wildfires.
“In Latin we say, ‘ignis numquam dicit, ‘satis.’ Fire never says ‘enough.’ If it’s got fuel and oxygen, it’s going to keep burning.”
So, the monks use their calling to tamp down the threat.
“Management is something that’s been given to man by God,” Lawrence said. “In Genesis, man is put as a steward over nature. So, we need to go out there and do our part in allowing the ecosystem to grow and flourish.”
In their humble opinion, the best way to do that is by doing it together.
“A society is made up of parts of members. And the parts are not greater than the whole,” Santiago said. “We as Benedictines know we’re part of the greater whole. Our part is primarily spiritual, but that carries on to everything else we do in the material realm.”
Header image courtesy of USDA Forest Service/Preston Keres
