Three ways to think about the Southwest
Forging a Sustainable Southwest: The power of collaborative conservation
Stephen E. Strom
This book would have utility alone as a modern history of the borderlands of southern Arizona and New Mexico. But it goes beyond history to place the innovations and accomplishments of the collaborative groups borne of this complex region among the conservation success stories in American history, with the Malpai Borderlands Group a chief example. Strom’s tome (and it is weighty) lays out the lessons these groups can teach us about “citizens’ ability to create shared land-use visions that take into consideration ecological, economic and cultural needs.”
Life After Dead Pool
Zak Podmore
As Utah river-rat and environmental journalist Podmore floated along Lake Powell, or what used to be Lake Powell, in 2022, he asked himself a serious question: What would really happen if we removed the Glen Canyon Dam? Beyond recovering the glories of Glen Canyon, a dream held by every monkeywrencher in the Southwest for three generations, Podmore digs into the practicalities. What about the hydropower? Would the canyon recover ecologically? How would the Colorado River system work without its second largest reservoir? The answers might surprise you, and Podmore’s engaging style will keep you reading either way.
Water Bodies: Love letters to the most abundant substance on Earth
Edited by Laura Paskus
This tidy little volume of stories, essays and poetry takes a prismatic look at the waters that shape the Southwest. Paskus is a longtime reporter and senior environment producer for New Mexico PBS, based in Albuquerque. Her vantage and the talented writers at her disposal take us from the headwaters of the San Juan River to sacred rituals of the Ute Mountain Ute to the uranium-fouled waters of the Navajo reservation to the cottonwood bosques along the Rio Grande to downtown Los Angeles and the artificial confluence at its taps. Each writer reflects their own relationship with water, most of them taut and rapturous in their way. But don’t let “love letters” in the subtitle mislead: there is as much grief and pain in these pages as joy and celebration.
