Chihuahuan Desert thirsts for conservation
Copyright 2000, Environmental News Network
December 28, 2000
By Elizabeth Foley
Measuring 250,000 square miles that take in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico, the Chihuahuan Desert is home to more mammal species than Yellowstone National Park.
As the door slams closed and Felipe Chavez settles into the driver's seat of his Ford Bronco, he knows the drive will be a long one. He's setting out on what will be one of many weekly journeys into the interior of Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert.
Chavez knows this desert. He first rode out into it at age 5, on horseback with his father. He's seen the splendor of a sunset casting its amber and purple glow on the expanses of yucca plants, and been there in the silence of dawn to witness a majestic golden eagle take flight.
"The Chihuahuan Desert is not well-known, even by the people who live here," explains Chavez. "A lot of people who live in the cities and rural communities within the region sometimes are not even aware that we call it the Chihuahuan Desert."
As eco-regional coordinator for the World Wide Fund for Nature, Chavez's greatest challenge is this desert.
Unknown to most people, the Chihuahuan, which stretches through southeastern Arizona, across New Mexico and west Texas, and southward deep into Mexico, covers nearly 250,000 square miles. Home to more mammal species than Yellowstone National Park, the desert is losing some of its most important species at an alarming rate.
Recent studies of one of the desert's key species, the Mexican prairie dog, show that it is losing colonies in more than 85 percent of its original range.
"As agriculture booms here, the prairie dog and other wildlife are losing out," says Chavez.
The prairie dogs are the most notable, but not the only wildlife in this region losing the battle with for water and streamside land as urbanization increases and agriculture expands. Also, foreign companies with little concern for the environment have descended to a region where they pay a daily rate that is a fraction of what they would pay at home. Extraction of copper, salt, lime and sand is taking its toll.
To remedy the situation, Chavez is working with local stakeholders to develop a conservation plan and alternative use practices in one of the most progressive conservation pushes in Mexico.
Over the past two decades, the influx of mass agriculture farming and its need for irrigation have pulled hard on the desert’s water resources. This is a land where the sun where annual rainfall is less than 15 inches.
Aquifers that have supplied small farming communities over the past 100 years have dropped by more than 100 feet in the past decade.
Felipe Chavez is eco-regional coordinator of the Chihuahuan Desert project.
“This is a desert—to farm this you’re using up huge amounts of water,” Chavez explains, “At some point soon, we’ll see a situation where the rivers and streams both humans and wildlife depend on just won’t be there any more.”
Chavez notes that WWF has several projects that involve protection of the ponds, including safeguards for pools against livestock which destroy vegetation and geohydrological studies to determine the origins of the water. Just six years ago, the Cuatrocienegas area was given protected status¾an exception for the Mexican part of this desert.
“Saving this desert is saving a part of my family, part of my life,” says Chavez with a smile.
“To some people, the desert looks barren. But behind the stark hills of yucca, it’s throbbing with life,” Chavez explains. “We’ve got an incredible diversity—from gypsum dunes, to over 450 species of cacti, and awe-inspiring raptors, coyotes, wolves, big horn sheep, and of course prairie dogs.”
Driving out over the dusty roads near Saltillo to talk with a family of goat herders, Chavez laughs about being a conservationist among farmers, “Some of my family still doesn’t understand what I do,” he says with a chuckle. “Some of my relatives thought studying birds was crazy.” "In Mexico the tradition of conservation really doesn't exist, besides some native tribes that have a very close relationship with nature. The rest of the folks don't," he explains. "The people who live in the country have a hard time just making a living, so trying to save nature is not one of their main goals. And even just understanding why other people would be interested in saving nature is not very clear to them."
Though the task is a formidable one, Chavez is steadfast in his mission to reconcile farmland tradition and modern conservation.
“We strongly believe the resources of the Chihuahuan Desert can be used if they’re used appropriately, with the right management,” he says. “ So we’re trying not only to protect the biological resources, we’re trying to protect the farmers and the ranchers that make their living here. I really think both wildlife and people were meant to live in this very inhospitable place—and can continue to do so for many hundreds of more years.”
Elizabeth Foley is a free-lance writer based in London. A version of this story was written for the World Wide Fund for Nature.