EARLY ONE MAY morning, I escaped Tucson’s unrelenting grid and drove south through Pima County on Arizona’s state Route 83, into the heart of the Madrean Sky Islands, an almost mythical landscape of shadowy, isolated peaks where several biological zones overlap. The blue-gray Whetstone Mountains marked the distant eastern horizon, the Patagonias loomed to the south, and to the immediate west rose the camelback ridgeline of the Santa Ritas. There, oaks and junipers stippled upper elevations, and rolling swells of grass blanketed low slopes. A haven for wildlife and a balm for those seeking respite in nature, this region contains some of the rarest intact ecosystems and the highest-quality streams among the deserts of the Southwest, providing habitat for ocelots, jaguars, and a dozen other endangered species.
I parked just off a rutted dirt road in the Coronado National Forest and walked several miles through sagebrush, mesquite, and brightly colored wildflowers. I was looking for old mining claim stakes and signs of big cats but contented myself with vultures, mule deer, and rabbits. Long before Spanish and American colonization, Native peoples prospected these mountains, leaving small scars on the hillsides. More than a century of grazing has helped woody shrubs displace grasslands, a process that climate change is exacerbating.
This story is from the September/October 2021 edition of Mother Jones.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the September/October 2021 edition of Mother Jones.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Let Them Eat Kelp
Is seaweed farming the wave of the future?
To Match a Predator
Dating apps promise to hook you up with romance. But they can deliver con artists, rapists, and murderers.
A Pennsylvania Prophet
Meet the Christian nationalists who want to assert dominion-starting with the Keystone State.
"I'm Not Turming the Other Cheek Any More"
Radicals took over the Michigan GOP. Now they can't stop losing.
"Absolutely Do Not Send Them There"
Foster kids have few advocates and little agency. That makes them the perfect cash cow for the country's biggest psychiatric hospital chain.
RICH DOC, POOR DOC
Why do the most important kinds of doctors earn the least money?
FREEDOM READERS
Authors of banned books-like me-are battling right-wing censorship daily. But we can't do it alone.
VAPOR TRAIL
After a cannabis product turned up at my kid's school, I rode into the Wild West of unregulated pot.
MEDICAL RESTRAINTS
How health care companies use debt to trap nurses on the job
Bad Neighbors
Tightly packed poultry and pig farms could be incubating the next deadly flu.