Water-guzzling demands of Trump’s border wall threaten fish species

Water-guzzling demands of Trump’s border wall threaten fish species

The survival of eight endangered and threatened species, including four kinds of endemic fish, is in doubt in Arizona, as massive quantities of groundwater are extracted to construct Donald Trump’s border wall.

The 30ft-high barrier is under construction on the edge of the San Bernardino national wildlife refuge in south-eastern Arizona, where rare desert springs and crystalline streams provide the only US habitat for the endangered freshwater Río Yaqui fish.

The region’s water ...

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Articles, Food Heritage and History, Redesigning Food Systems, Restoration Economy

At the Mexican Border, the Battle for Endangered Species is as Much About Water as About The Wall

At the Mexican Border, the Battle for Endangered Species is as Much About Water as About The Wall

When 340 protesters from many cultures showed up at Organ Pipe Cactus Monument on the Arizona-Mexico border this past November to express their heartbreak over the damage done by construction of a wall, law enforcement officers appeared to be baffled by their concerns. Officials from the Army Corps of Engineers and Homeland Security were surprised that all of the signs and chants were not targeted at the wall itself.

Sure, some of the youth present were in animal costumes to demonstrate ...

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Articles, Collaborative Conservation, Family, Community & Place, Restoration Economy

Gary Nabhan Listens as Two Fruits Testify at the Impeachment Hearings

Gary Nabhan Listens as Two Fruits Testify at the Impeachment Hearings

Adam Schiff: Today we will hear from two fruit trees who happened to be in the Ukraine at the time of the back channel visits there by Rudy Guliani. Before we begin with some substance, do you have any fluff to add to todays presentations, Mr. Nuñes?

Devin Nuñes: Oh, here we go with Adam Schiff ’s Storytime of events that did not happen. There is no Ukraine. In fact, there is no Russia. There is no back channel. I have ...

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Articles, Food Heritage and History, Reflections

Modelled distributions and conservation status of the wild relatives of chile peppers

Modelled distributions and conservation status of the wild relatives of chile peppers

Crop wild relatives—the wild progenitors and closely related species to cultivated plants—have provided many important agronomic and nutritional traits for crop improvement (Dempewolf et al., 2017; Hajjar & Hodgkin, 2007). As populations of some of these taxa are adapted to extreme climates, adverse soil types, and important pests and diseases, they may provide key traits for the adaptation of crop plants to emerging and projected future challenges (Dempewolf ...

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Articles, Collaborative Conservation, Farming Innovations, Food Heritage and History, Redesigning Food Systems, Restoration Economy

People came together to grieve the construction of an unneeded border wall.

People came together to grieve the construction of an unneeded border wall.

At Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument today, 320 people of different nations, races, cultures and faiths peacefully came together to grieve the new construction of an unneeded border wall. Its construction activities are already cutting off access to water for the survival of people and wildlife, are violating native and other place-based spiritual practices, and are destroying ancient cactus and ironwood forests.

At Qutobaquito springs along the border–once the most biodiverse oasis in the entire Sonoran Desert– the cumulative destruction of ...

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Articles, Collaborative Conservation, Reflections, Restoration Economy

Richard Nelson, Wise Child of the Wild, Flies Away on the West Coast of Salmon Nation

Richard Nelson, Wise Child of the Wild, Flies Away on the West Coast of Salmon Nation

The only job description that fully fit with his temperament and enormous skill set was that of being in exuberant contact with the wild world.  All other job descriptions imposed on him by institutions or scholarly disciplines were side issues, or at best, springboards for getting him into the wilderness: as an ethnographer studying survival on sea ice; a field anthropologist investigating subsistence hunting; an ethnozoologist documenting traditional knowledge and values of Athapaskan fishers, foragers and hunters; a videographer, an ...

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Articles, Essays for Hope and Reflection, Family, Community & Place

Gary Nabhan requests career counseling from a pomegranate tree

Gary Nabhan requests career counseling from a pomegranate tree

Pomegranate: Next! How can I help you today?

Gary: Well, I feel kinda out of balance with my work these days.

Pomegranate: Have you requested an appointment with your corporations Human Resources Division?

Gary: That’s just the trouble. I feel that my personal human resources have become too divided. You see, I love science and I love poetry, but they don’t always go together in the workplace. Or to put a finer point on it, they almost never go together…

Pomegranate: That’s why you ...

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Articles, Poetry and Parables, Reflections

An Ironwood Tree and a Saguaro Ask Gary for Help in Conflict Resolution

An Ironwood Tree and a Saguaro Ask Gary for Help in Conflict Resolution

Gary: Okay, okay, I know you are both sensitive about what has happened between you, but let us see if we can find common ground….

Ironwood: Common ground? I have offered to share my ground with this little upstart not long after his germination. I served as his nurse for over thirty years, protecting him from heat, drought, sunburn, freezes and furry creatures. And what do I get in return? He throws his roots out right over mine and sucks up ...

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Articles, Poetry and Parables, Reflections

Gary Nabhan asks for spiritual guidance from an arborescent cactus

Gary Nabhan asks for spiritual guidance from an arborescent cactus

Gary: Greetings, master.

Prickly Pear: Greetings. Bless you, my child.

Gary:  I am here to ask you to tell me the secrets that have made you so upstanding, so unflappable.

Prickly Pear: Well, I‘m not so sure have always been UP standing. When I was younger, my prickly pads sort of zigzagged their way above the desert floor. And have you noticed how much they look like pancakes/ I would say that they are unflappable, Jack.

Gary: My name is Gary, not Jack.

Prickly Pear: ...

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Articles, Poetry and Parables, Reflections

Gary Nabhan asks for directions from a rivulet rushing downhill toward a larger stream

Gary Nabhan asks for directions from a rivulet rushing downhill toward a larger stream

Gary: Excuse me, I’m lost, can you tell me which way…?

Rivulet: I can’t hear you, the water is roaring so loud, can you just…

Gary: Wait, don’t run away, I just need a little help…

Rivulet: Well, then just don’t stand there, jump in!

Gary: But what if it won’t take me to where I’m trying to reach?

Rivulet: Reach? Don’t just stand there! See, you’re going nowhere right now…

Gary: But I’m lost!

Rivulet: That’s because you’re not moving toward anything.

Gary: But what the way ...

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Articles, Reflections

Gary Paul Nabhan, recently interviewed by a clod of dirt

Gary Paul Nabhan, recently interviewed by a clod of dirt

Dirt: So you occasionally write about us?

Gary: Well yes, on occasion. Why?

Dirt: What do you think entitles you to pry into our lives?

Gary: I’m not prying, exactly…I’m sort of crumbling you between my hands.

Dirt: While you are writing, you crumble us between your hands. Gads!

Gary: Only metaphorically so… teasing you apart, then rolling you back into a ball, so to speak.

Dirt: I just hate to be teased.  What gives you the license to write about us?

Gary: Well, I sort of ...

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Articles, Collaborative Conservation, Farming Innovations, Reflections

Border Wall Construction: Imperiling Sacred Sites, Churches and Religious Freedom

Border Wall Construction: Imperiling Sacred Sites, Churches and Religious Freedom

Most of us have heard the devastating reports of how the new construction of a thirty-foot wall and floodlights along our southern border has begun to impact water flows, wildlife and archaeological resources long-protected by federal laws. The federal protection of endangered species, critical habitat and cultural antiquities has been waived along a three-hundred foot swath along the U.S./Mexico border. Eminent domain under the auspices of homeland security has allowed U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and Army Corps of Engineers ...

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Articles, Essays for Hope and Reflection, Reflections

Trans Situ Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives

Trans Situ Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives

In the face of unprecedented climatic disasters, social conflict, and political uncertainty, integrating in situ and ex situ strategies may become increasingly necessary to effectively conserve crop wild relatives (CWR). We introduce the concept of trans situ conservation to safeguard CWR genetic diversity and accessibility for crop improvement. Building on initiatives to combine in situ protection with ex situ backup in genebanks, trans situ conservation dynamically integrates multiple in situ and ex situ measures, from conservation to research to education, ...

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Articles, Collaborative Conservation, Farming Innovations, Redesigning Food Systems, Restoration Economy

Trump’s Border Wall: Epitaph for an Endangered, Night-blooming Cactus?

Trump’s Border Wall: Epitaph for an Endangered, Night-blooming Cactus?

Construction is underway on a 30-foot-high steel wall along Arizona’s southern border in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. As several reports have recently warned, the wall will hurt many endangered desert species, from Sonoran pronghorns to cactus ferruginous pygmy owls. To understand how the wall will further fragment habitats for these already-declining plants and animals, let’s go deep with one rare species that’s at grave risk: a cactus called the night-blooming cereus.

Sacamatraca, a beautiful and rare ...

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Articles, Collaborative Conservation, Essays for Hope and Reflection, Food Heritage and History, Redesigning Food Systems, Restoration Economy

Ancient watering hole in Southern Arizona at risk from border wall construction

Ancient watering hole in Southern Arizona at risk from border wall construction

An ancient spring near Lukeville has slaked the thirst of desert travelers for centuries, but its days may be numbered as groundwater is pumped to build a 30-foot border wall.

Water has bubbled out of the granite at Quitobaquito Springs for thousands of years, making it a key watering hole for the Tohono O’odham, Spanish missionaries, U.S. and Mexican boundary surveyors, and countless other humans and animals.

The Trump administration decided to build a wall along 44 miles of the border in ...

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Articles, Collaborative Conservation, Family, Community & Place, Food Heritage and History, Restoration Economy

Agrivoltaics proves mutually beneficial across food, water, energy nexus

Agrivoltaics proves mutually beneficial across food, water, energy nexus

Building resilience in renewable energy and food production is a fundamental challenge in today’s changing world, especially in regions susceptible to heat and drought. Agrivoltaics, the co-locating of agriculture and solar photovoltaic panels, offers a possible solution, with new University of Arizona-led research reporting positive impacts on food production, water savings and the efficiency of electricity production.

Agrivoltaics, also known as solar sharing, is an idea that has been gaining traction in recent years; however, few studies have monitored all aspects ...

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Articles, Collaborative Conservation, Farming Innovations, Food Heritage and History, Redesigning Food Systems, Restoration Economy

The Healthiest Thing You Can Do Today? Get Dirty!

The Healthiest Thing You Can Do Today? Get Dirty!

Americans now spend a stunning 90 percent of their time indoors. Our sedentary, screen-addicted lifestyles have been blamed for a range of ills — including obesity, attention problems, allergies and more.

We know that getting out of the house and into nature confers many benefits for physical and mental health. But there’s an additional benefit you might not know about: contact with the soil — good old dirt — enriches the gut microbiome, the community of microorganisms ...

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Articles, Collaborative Conservation, Family, Community & Place, Food Heritage and History, Redesigning Food Systems

Tensions at the US southern border are putting scientists and their work at risk

Tensions at the US southern border are putting scientists and their work at risk

Scientists working on the US-Mexico border face unique challenges when trying to study borderlands ecosystems, from outright harassment by Border Patrol officers to tight restrictions on travel and what natural materials can cross the border. It’s all gotten worse under the Trump administration.

“In the course of talking to scientists, I found that nearly everyone I spoke to had some story about how the wall and the crackdown on immigration is affecting their ability to do their work,” says Living ...

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Articles, Audiocasts, Food Heritage and History, Redesigning Food Systems, Videos & Audio

The Canary Islands Connection

The Canary Islands Connection

I’m surrounded by date palms. Around them run dry watercourses that look like ones I find not far from my home in Tucson, Arizona. The traditional architecture in town would not be out of place in Tucson, either—or almost anywhere from southern Spain to Mexico and up into the southwest us. The fruit trees and grapevines hark back even further, to traditions of my ancestors from Syria and Lebanon. Perhaps this is what a visit to the ...

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Articles, Collaborative Conservation, Farming Innovations, Food Heritage and History

Bearing Witness: Voices Of Climate Change Part VI: Climate Refugees

Bearing Witness: Voices Of Climate Change Part VI: Climate Refugees

This week, we’re airing a series of interviews called Bearing Witness: Voices of Climate Change. They’re stories told by longtime Arizonans about changes they’ve seen in the familiar landscapes of their lives. While personal experience, in and of itself, is not scientific conclusion, many researchers believe long-term observation is a critical component to understanding how climate change affects humanity and the planet. Today’s interview is with teacher, author and ecologist, Gary Nabhan.

He is the founding director of Northern Arizona University’s Center for ...

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Articles, Audiocasts, Collaborative Conservation, Farming Innovations, Videos & Audio

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