{"version":"1.0","provider_name":"RENATURED","provider_url":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog","author_name":"Marina","author_url":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog\/blog\/author\/admin\/","title":"Not in Kansas (or NY) any more","html":"I flew from LGA to Denver.\r\nI found the tornado shelter sign\r\nin the women's bathroom disarming.\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n\r\nThen flew from Denver to Albuquerque,\r\nand then drove 5 hours south and west.\r\nFirst scorched earth - 98 degrees\r\nsoft hills and naked rock rising like a dead sea,\r\n140 miles to Truth or Consequences\r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n\r\n(the town was founded by Bob Barker)\r\nwhere I bought a small saw and a straw hat at Walmart<\/a>\r\n(which wasn't there 19 years ago\r\nwhen I spent my birthday in\r\na tatty wooden tub containing\r\na hot spring the Rio Grande).\r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n\r\nThen I turned the fancy little Subaru Outback\r\ntowards the west, and drove up and up and up\r\nthrough the JEWELS of alpine desert mountains\r\n(an inland island ecology,\r\nthe largest of which are in the Gila,\r\ncollectively known as the Sky Island Region<\/a>)\r\non curvacious roads at 15 MPH\r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n\r\nand at a brief apex,\r\nthe temperature dropped to 80 degrees\r\nbut then I wound back down and down,\r\nuntil I was in a high valley of grasses and chollo in bloom\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\npast an enormous open pit copper mine, the Santa Rita<\/a>\r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n\r\nto Silver City, N.M.\r\n\"Gateway to the Gila,\"\r\nwell over 5,000 feet up, in the Chihuahuan desert\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"399\" caption=\"2006 NY Times Travel Section: "36 hours in Silver City"\"]\"\"<\/a>[\/caption]\r\n\r\nFires sparked by lightning 2 weeks ago in the Gila have left the air in this high valley smokey, evenly hazy and taupe. Over 300 square miles had burned as of this morning. This is healthy, not a tragedy, right? But it's\u00a0 stressful for all the animals, esp the human ones. 1,200 fire fighters are in there trying to contain or squelch bits of the rampage. A lot of the park roads are closed, as is the Gila Cliff Dwellings Monument. Bummer. In tourist season, this is a blow, especially with the geographically impaired (myself included), for whom it's easy to surmise that the state is on fire or at least at risk of smoke inhalation. And people have been evacuated from towns. What is happening with the cattle who graze nearby?\r\n\r\nI'll be here for a 2 week residency researching the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program,\u00a0 supported by ISEA<\/a> and the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance<\/a>. Instigated by a gracious talented and expert host: Michael Berman<\/a>.\r\n\r\nI don't really know how to give some simple context for this project. I reach points where I can, then slip back into the murk of positions, territories, symbolism, and overlapping realities. And I am totally new to this: to facing issues surrounding public land rights, private land rights, shifting land rights, ideas and ideals about wilderness, and the politics and on-the-ground situation of this (or any) wolf reintroduction program.\r\n\r\nThe players: \"enviros,\" conservationists (some make a distinction, the former being extremist the latter being ecosystem people), cattle ranchers, government agents, non-profits, and politicians.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n\r\n ","type":"rich"}