Embracing a New Era—with a New Secretary of the Interior
April 5, 2021April. It’s a fresh slate with desert blooms, Covid-19 vaccines, and Deb Haaland’s first full month as the Secretary of the Interior. There’s a lot to look forward to! Haaland’s election is a historic moment. She is a member of the Laguna Pueblo in New…
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Notes from the Field: Round River Conservation Studies Sky Island Semester
February 18, 2021After spending the last few months planning for the Round River Conservation Studies (RRCS) first ever semester in the Sky Islands, I was ecstatic to finally spend time with them…
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Notes from the Field: Spring Seeking with Peace Corps Coverdell Fellows
December 7, 2020Since the most memorable years of my life were spent in the Peace Corps, I’m always excited to meet another returned Peace Corps Volunteer (“RPCV”), which happens quite often in…
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Arizona’s First Indigenous Peoples’ Day
October 9, 2020What does it mean to decolonize conservation? Why does mainstream environmentalism still recognize the 1960s as the “birth of the environmental movement” when communities all around the world have protected Earth’s ecosystem for centuries? How do we as…
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Notes from the Field: The Border Wall
September 18, 2020A large part of my job is maintaining our field cameras for the Border Wildlife Study stretching between the Patagonia Mountains and the Huachuca Mountains. I’ve always loved fieldwork—a chance to escape…
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Volunteer Spotlight: Brit Rosso
August 24, 2020Volunteers make Sky Island Alliance work possible—from restoration projects to spring surveys to wildlife tracking, we couldn’t do it without them! Today we’d like to introduce one of our newer volunteers who has…
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Notes from the Field: Florida Canyon, Wilderness Springs Survey
August 18, 2020Driving back from the field the other day I smiled as I merged onto I-19 heading back towards Tucson. I had traveled just a mere hour from my home and had enjoyed another rewarding day in the…
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Thank You, Congressmen John Lewis
July 30, 2020“Humanity is the most important endangered species under threat from climate change and yet we flood our ecology with poisons and pollution. It is my belief that our country needs…
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Friday Flora Feature: Monkeyflowers
June 12, 2020Monkeyflowers are iconic desert plants found here in the Sky Island region and in much of the Western United States. Today’s Friday Flora Feature highlights the scarlet monkeyflower (Erythranthe cardinalis) and the seep monkeyflower (Erythranthe guttata). It’s all in the name..or is it? Biologists and nature enthusiasts tend to use scientific…
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Enhancing Resilience to Catastrophic Wildfire
May 27, 2020What do wildland fires have to do with water? Lots, actually! In addition to the more obvious and immediate impacts—burned vegetation and habitat destruction—wildfires have extensive hydrological and ecological effects on watersheds. These impacts include erosion, debris flow, flooding, and changes in water quality—all very important factors for ecosystem health. …
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