Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area hosts Earth Night and Day April 24-25

A free sunset walk, kid-friendly nature games and stargazing with an astrophotographer and National Park Service rangers turned Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area into one of the most accessible Earth Day weekend outings in Valencia County. For families looking for something close to home, the appeal was simple: hands-on conservation, outdoor science and a chance to see the county’s riparian habitat without leaving Belen.

Earth Day itself is observed each April 22 and traces back to 1970, when the modern environmental movement began. At Whitfield, that larger history met a local setting built for practical learning. The Valencia Soil and Water Conservation District said Earth Night ran Friday, April 24, from 5 to 10 p.m., and Earth Day followed Saturday, April 25, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The program was free and included family activities, dark-sky education, composting information and water-harvesting landscaping demonstrations.

The event also gave children and adults something concrete to do. Kids of all ages could take part in a Recycling Relay and a Nature Match Up, while Friday evening featured a guided sunset walk around Whitfield. The mix of games, instruction and nighttime programming made the conservation area feel less like a preserve to look at from a distance and more like a place where residents could learn by moving through it.

That kind of access matters in a county where land, water and open space shape daily life. Whitfield was created in April 2003, when the district acquired a 97-acre tract in Belen historically known as the Whitfield-Trammell Property, or the old Curran’s dairy. The land was placed in a permanent conservation easement through the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Wetlands Reserve Program, and a visitor and education center opened in late 2009. Today, the site serves as a riparian and wetlands restoration area near Belen, with a public mission that reaches beyond the fence line.

Teresa Smith de Cherif, the district’s chairwoman, has helped present Whitfield as a community resource as well as a conservation project. That role showed in the turnout the site can draw: district reporting said about 600 visitors came to a Whitfield event in 2025 despite 30 mile per hour wind gusts, rain and scattered hail. For Valencia County families, Earth Night and Day offered a nearby way to spend a weekend outdoors, learn something useful and see how conservation work can improve quality of life close to the Rio Grande corridor.