In my previous post, I mentioned how deserts can contain a great deal of biological diversity. Rather than boring a general audience with a tedious scientific lecture that may make them back away from wanting to learn more about ecological restoration, I am posting a link to an article about Josiah and Valer Austin’s ecological restoration work in the desert southwest.
“An Amateur Rancher Brings the Wastelands of the Southwest Back to Life” – by Kathie Dobie
They are the founders of the Cuenca Los Ojos Foundation and they have restored many thousands of acres of borderland between Arizona, New Mexico, and the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua. It is an inspiring article and goes to show that there is more to deserts than “sand and rocks and death.”
A sixteen minute documentary about the Foundation can be found here.
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I posted this article with the hope of showing people that you don’t have to have a biology degree or range management degree to do all of these things. You just have to have a green fire passion and a will to learn, as well as a drive to keep going and to continue learning, as you make mistakes while exposing yourself to nature’s tutelage.
And you can’t be afraid of research and hard work.
The more people we have from the general population that becomes inspired to do ecological restoration work, then the more of a conservation army we will have to compliment the professionals and to further a growing common cause, because we’re all in this together – there’s only one Earth. Ecological restoration assures us that we have a future on this Earth. Without the work of people like Josiah and Austin Valor, the world dies a little more every day.
Mother Nature can do just fine without us, but we can’t survive at all if she is not healthy.
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