than any other ecoregion in the Southwest. The Rio Grande Watershed, which contains the Cibola’s four mountain ranger districts, ranked second out of eight watershed regions for species of greatest conservation need (SGCN) in the New Mexico Game and Fish’s Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy. The Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy also ranked the Arizona-New Mexico Mountain Ecoregion, within which the Magdalena and Mt. Taylor Ranger Districts are located, second out of six ecoregions in the state for SGCN, with 80 identified SGCN. The Nature Conservancy has identified the San Mateo, Magdalena, and Datil Mountains within the Cibola's Magdalena Ranger District as key conservation areas due to their ecological diversity. Recreation and special uses The Cibola offers an abundance of recreational opportunities including picnicking, backpacking, camping, skiing, hiking, wildlife-viewing, star-gazing, horseback-riding, hunting and mountain biking as well as driving for pleasure and enjoying the aerial Sandia Peak Tramway with a restaurant and skiing at the top. The two most popular recreational activities on the Cibola are hiking/walking and viewing natural features with 35% and 15% of visitors citing these as their main activities, respectively. In addition to ample recreational opportunities, the Cibola provides special facilities for scientific research. The largest special use permit on the Cibola is for the Langmuir Research Site, with 31,000-acres on South Baldy Peak. The Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research was established to study atmospheric processes that result in lightning, hail, and rain. The Magdalena Ridge Observatory (MRO), also located on South Baldy, studies astronomical events with a 2.4-m telescope and the Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer. Both Langmuir and MRO are operated by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Additional multiple uses that occur on the Cibola National Forest include grazing, mining, logging, and oil/gas development. History The lands in the Cibola National Forest have a rich cultural history. The forest itself grew out of lands first established as Forest Reserves in the late 1800s to protect natural resources, such as watersheds, trees, and soils. The human and cultural history of these national forest lands stretch back well before the 1800s. Basham noted in his report documenting the archeological history of the Cibola’s Magdalena Ranger District that “[t]he heritage resources on the district are diverse and representative of nearly every prominent human evolutionary event known to anthropology. Evidence for human use of district lands date back 14,000 years to the Paleoindian period providing glimpses into the