Change in the Sky Island Region, deep time to near future plus... O Geologic origin of the Sky Islands: Dragoon Mountains, West Stronghold Canyon. Photo by C.S. Fly, 1883, courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society. centerfold Pima County’s one million O A fish in Deep Time The tenacious Arizona cypress O Dewatering the Gila? O Restoring the Santa Cruz O SIA staff timeline O Sky Island Alliance outings & Same site, 2002. Photo by David Hodges. other events Spring-Summer 2004 1 Sky Island Alliance Many Thanks to Our Contributors! Walt Anderson, author, artist, and Prescott College teacher; tremendously talented local poets Wendy Burke, Table of Contents Eric Magrane, and Susanna Mishler; Leonard DeBano and Peter Ffolliott, University of Arizona professors and long-time biology and management researchers; David Sky Island Coblentz, geologist and former SIA board member, now at the Los Alamos National Labs; Julia Fonseca, hydrolo- Alliance gist and long-time Sky Island activist; Sarah Johnson, Protecting administrative staffer for the Upper Gila Watershed Alli- ance in Gila, New Mexico; Ken Lamberton, award-win- Our Mountain Islands ning and prolofic Tucson-based science and nature writer; & Desert Seas Dennis Pepe, owner of Tucson’s excellent Green Fire Bookshop; Kathy Pitts, exclusive Flora and Fauna col- 520/624-7080 • fax 520/791-7709 umnist for Restoring Connections; Susan Shobe, stellar [email protected] organizer with the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protec- www.skyislandalliance.org tion; Ann Wendland, creative writer and superb pastry P.O. B ox 41165 chef who has just abandoned us to live in Colorado; and, Tucson, AZ 85717 of course, the SIA staff. Office: Historic YWCA 738 N. 5th Avenue, Suite 201 Sky Island Alliance is a non- profit membership organization dedicated to restoring and protecting the unique diversity of the Sky Islands of Southeastern Arizona, Southwestern New Mexico, and Northern Mexico. STAFF Rambling Rants from the Director’s Desk..................................................3 David Hodges Executive Director ORV user conflicts and management.........................................................4 [email protected] Acasia Berry Pima County Open Space Bond......................................................................5 Associate Director [email protected] Resident One Million (cont. from back cover)........................................5 Matt Skroch Field Program Director Restoring the Santa Cruz River.......................................................................6 [email protected] Dewatering the Gila River...................................................................................7 Trevor Hare Conservation Biologist Fish in Deep Time......................................................................................................9 [email protected] Cory Jones CENTERFOLD SPECIAL: Tectonic origin of the Sky Island..................10 GIS Specialist [email protected] Janice Przybyl Road Rattlings............................................................................................................12 Wildlife Monitoring Program [email protected] Wildlife Monitoring................................................................................................13 Bethany Gray Wilderness organizer Roadless Rule Update and Campaign........................................................13 [email protected] Society Finds Wonder in the Weeds...........................................................14 From painting by Henry Cheever Pratt, 1855 Gita Bodner Conservation planning and outreach Poetry...............................................................................................................................15 [email protected] Caroline “Frog” Tinker Flora and Fauna Meets the Mighty Cypress..........................................16 Protect Arizona’s Roadless Areas campaign [email protected] Desert Rat’s Reflections in the Wash.........................................................16 Camille Kershner Office Assistant SIA Staff Timeline...................................................................................................17 Lenny Alvarado Ecosystem Management Matures..................................................................18 Legal Intern Booknotes: The Changing Mile Revisited ................................................18 Newsletter Gita Bodner, general editor Mapping: Resident One Million and Counting....................back cover Bob VanDeven and Dug Schoellkopf assistant editors Seeking SIA newsletter submissions: Board of Directors Send us your poetry, your words of wisdom, your art! Rod Mondt, President We want to keep this newsletter filled with inspirational, informative material, and we’d like your help! Do you write Nancy Zierenberg, Secretary poetry? Draw, sketch, paint, or photograph? Like to address regional conservation issues? Review books or websites? Dale Turner, Treasurer Anything that relates to the Sky Islands region is fair game! You can respond to items in our recent newsletter, comment on Curtis Bradley Paul Hirt your experiences as a volunteer or conference-goer, etc. Also, let us know if you’d like to be a regular contributor, e.g. with a Lainie Levick column each issue. The deadline for our next newsletter is September 1, 2004. Material submitted after that date may be Rurik List saved for subsequent issues. Please email submissions to [email protected], or mail them to Sky Island Alli- Carlos Lopez Gonzalez ance attn: Gita, P.O. Box 41165, Tucson, AZ 85717. Resolution of digital images should be at least 300 dpi if possible, but we Steve Marlatt can work with some lower-resolution images. Miss our restaurant reviews? That’s because no one sent us any! You know Todd Schulke there are some great eats out there. Give your favorite small-town restaurant a boost by writing it up and letting us promote it! 2 Sky Island Alliance Spring-Summer 2004 A Sky Island Decade: Transitions, transformation, and priorities for the future. any of the beliefs I once held Life has got a ha bit of not standing h itched. You Gila Valleys are also threatened. The as sacrosanct are either no got to ride it like you find it. You got to change Sonoita Valley Planning Partnership and longer relevant or my think- the Malpai Borderlands Group have de- M veloped excellent models that could be ing on them has changed. I would like to with it. If a day goes by that don’t change some of think of this as a natural progression that your old notions for new ones, that is just about expanded into other valleys, though that comes with age and maturity but that’s only will require attracting more conservation a part of what has transpired. A decade of like trying to milk a dead cow. funding to the region. This can only hap- changes in the world and in our region pen if all parties (NGO’s, land manage- have had at least as much influence on me. ~ Woody Guthrie ment agencies, and private landowners) Recently, our volunteers returned from work together a SIA field weekend with alarming news. adapt to changes; those who don’t become easements becoming an important tool. State lands make up much of our region’s An inholding, just within the remote irrelevant. Landowners in Sonoita started the Sonoita lowlands. These areas are often inter- Peloncillo Mountain Wilderness, had been Changes: Valley Planning Partnership. Working with mingled with private lands. In Arizona, subdivided and lots were being sold. They Explosive population growth is driving the Empire-Cienega Ranch, Sonoran Insti- citizens have long called for protection of even met several potential buyers at the change here in the Sky Islands. 300,000 tute, BLM, and the Nature Conservancy, these lands, with diverse interests fighting end of a long, bad dirt road. Unfortunately, people moved here during the past ten these folks envisioned a National Conser- over this issue for as long as I can remem- these sorts of developments are happening years. Many are moving to what we once vation Area at Las Cienegas and facilitated ber. We must get beyond this stalemate and with greater frequency. regarded as remote places. The advent of its creation in Congress. In the southeast move forward with meaningful protection This has led me to rethink my position on such modern conveniences as efficient so- corner of Arizona and the Bootheel of New of these critical landscapes. a much-debated argument in the rural West lar power, satellite TV, phone and internet, Mexico, local ranchers formed the Malpai On federally managed public lands, 12 – cows vs. condos. The parameter of this combined with the retirement of the first Borderlands Group. The MBG has been million acres of public lands (four BLM debate is that you must have one or the other wave of baby boomers has fueled much of instrumental in keeping that region free of districts and four National Forests) in the - take your choice. These days I find I this rural migration. development through the use of conserva- Sky Islands will undergo management plan cannot ascribe to the absolutism that is so An added impact has been the vast hu- tion easements, while reintroducing fire revisions during the next five years. The common on both sides of this issue. I once man migration moving north through the into their region. The Gray Ranch, at Coronado National Forest is especially thought this concept a myth, and that remote Sky Islands.