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Sky Islands — a unique environment worthy of protection
Last updated on Thursday, July 17, 2003
Southwest New Mexico Desert Basin and Range. Photo by the Author. 
About 15 years ago, I became the editor of Basin & Range , a short-lived magazine (three issues) based in Silver City. The demise of this periodical is a story unto itself, and not a particularly pleasant one, but the inspiration for the journal is still out there, albeit in somewhat tattered form: the mountain ranges and desert basins of Southwest New Mexico and Southeast Arizona.
Along about the same time, a very good book of natural history was published by Texas A&M. Called Mountain Islands and Desert Seas, by Frederick Gehlbach, it is an interesting survey of the wildlife and habitat along the United States/Mexico border. This book, too, was inspired by our own unique Southwestern topography.
Now comes a coalition of conservationists, inspired by the same geographic region, who would like to protect, and in some cases even restore, the magnificence, the naturalness, the wildlife and habitat of this same expanse of rugged mountain and arid plains. It is called the Sky Island Alliance.
Still in its infancy, the alliance is a diverse organization of conservation groups and individuals, and is in the process of formulating its goals and methods.
Its focus is the Sky Islands/Greater Gila region, an interrelated geography of life zones, including the Gila River watershed in New Mexico, the San Pedro River watershed in Arizona, and lands adjacent and in between. In the future, the focus will also include the Rio Yaqui drainage of Chihuahua and Sonora.
The philosophy and rationale of the group might best be understood by considering an observation by Aldo Leopold: "The penalty of an ecological education is the realization that we live in a world of wounds."
More than a century of human activity has left us with a region that continues to inspire but which, upon closer examination, is painful to look at.
The Sky Island Alliance notes three major impacts to the beauty and biological integrity of the region: the overgrazing of livestock, which has particularly hurt riparian areas; fire suppression, which has disrupted the natural "fire mosaic" regimes of the past; and the elimination of large, native mammals, particularly predators like the wolf, the grizzly, and the river otter.
Thus, the three major goals of conservation would be restoration of streams and riparian forests; recovery of large native carnivores and ungulates; and restoration of a natural fire system (which would necessarily include some prescribed fires set and controlled by man).
All this, of course, is the fun part — you spend some time hiking, fishing or hunting this great region; you are captured by the beauty and the biological diversity of that place where the Northern Rockies meet the Sierra Madre; and you are inspired to want to protect its treasures and heal its wounds.
But how do you accomplish this in the face of well-funded political opposition, entrenched economic uses that may be resistant to change, and a burgeoning population fueled by various organized and one-man chambers of commerce that are inspired by the region's potential for growth rather than such things as river otter restoration?
Well, it isn't going to be easy. But a variety of core areas of public and private land within the region give us an idea of how things might be done.
The Gila Wilderness in New Mexico and the Blue Range Primitive Area in Arizona are big enough and may be wild enough to hold wolves and grizzlies. Additional roadless areas, if protected, would augment these wild lands.
In lower elevations, ranches like the Ladder and the Gray are examples of private lands that are managed for biological diversity as well as livestock.
Other public lands, which are not designated as wilderness, could with better management offer improved wildlife corridors that are crucial if wildlife diversity is to be restored.
The key would seem to be to get government agencies, economic interests, recreation and conservation interests, and just plain folks, to begin to look at the Sky Islands region as a biological whole.
The goals of the Sky Island Alliance are lofty and expansive, but there is evidence that the group nonetheless has both feet on the ground. At a recent meeting of the group, it was generally agreed that the alliance "favors traditional and new economic uses that are compatible with biological goals."
In the case of traditional economic uses, this may mean some changes in management and a new look at the land.
Rancher Jim Winder gave a talk at the meeting outlining how ranchers can meet the environmental goals of environmental groups and at the same time help their own ranches economically. Winder owns a large expanse of excellent grassland near Nutt.
"Commodity production, like cows, isn't the only thing the rancher can take off the land," Winder said. "Recreation and conservation also have economic value."
As an example, Winder told how he had sold a conservation easement on his home ranch to a conservation group, assuring that the land would never be subdivided. This easement sale helps him remain viable as a rancher.
"The market price of that easement is the conservation value of that land," Winder said. "Most ranchers don't realize the conservation value inherent in their own land."
Another way in which environmental goals and economic interests may join occurs with recreation values.
Recently, I read an interesting article on trout fishing in the Sierra Madre by Silver City fly-fisherman Rex Johnson. Johnson went to the Rio Gavilan in Chihuahua to fish the stream Aldo Leopold made famous in "A Sand County Almanac."
He found the Rio Gavilan (at least the portion he visited) in poor shape, with unregulated logging and grazing yielding erosion, siltation, and a rapid runoff after rains. Some trout remained, however, and Johnson said that some of the more remote feeder streams seemed to be in pretty good shape.
Anybody who knows anything about trout fishing knows that the economic values that attend the sport are considerable. The conservation and recreation values of the Rio Gavilan are potentially huge given a new look at local economics, and some management and regulation of the traditional economic uses of the region.
Restoring a stream like the Rio Gavilan, or the Gila River, is not just a matter of aesthetic appreciation.
The lands and waters that inspired a magazine and a book have inspired a diverse coalition of conservationists to protect and restore this last best place in the great Southwest. Those lacking that inspiration are invited to take a day off and climb one of our nearby sky islands and look out over the basin and range.
Those mountain islands and desert seas are still there; not what they were, not what they could be, but still magnificent.
It's a gift that stretches farther than the eye can see.
It's yours. And it's mine.
Let's not muck it up.
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