For me this is an easy question to answer. Prior to moving to El Paso I spent seventeen years working at Big Bend National Park, the world’s largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert. It was there working as a park ranger and on a variety of research projects that I came to know this desert ecosystem so well. Today I am very concerned about its future and the threats of development that endanger the desert on both sides of the border. Since the first day I put on a park ranger badge in 1975 I have dedicated my life to helping people connect with and understand this amazing land.
We need the poppies and the adjoining Castner Range like we need water flowing into our homes and food in our stomachs. Nature is life and without it we simply cannot survive. Imagine what our world would be like if all we knew were buildings, super highways and concrete. Ever try eating a rock? Do you know think you could live very long without water? All of the natural resources that we need to survive are limited. Unfortunately for our children and their children’s children many if not most of the decision makers approving plans for urban sprawl, one of the main threats to the desert, have little understanding of why keeping the desert ecosystem intact is so important to our future. Still others have some understanding, but do not know how to stop the wave of development currently underway. As a result thousands of species of animals and plants here and around the world have gone extinct or are on the road to extinction.
Most of the animals that live in the Castner Range are valuable in helping to maintain the desert’s complex biodiversity. For example, the foraging behavior of mule deer, small mammals and birds helps to disperse seeds of numerous plants important to their own survival and the survival of countless other species. Writing for the US Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Bulletin, Jim Lyzer brings this important understanding into focus: “We are destroying or wiping out species before we know what their value might be. That in itself should justify the time and expense that it takes to help them avert extinction. Beyond that we have an ethical obligation to all the species that share this planet. When we lose anything, we’re really losing a figurative encyclopedia. And we might be losing a page with enormous benefits to mankind. Unfortunately, today most people around the world either are unaware or unconcerned about the consequences that will surely affect the survival of our own species in the near future.”
Looking at the “big picture for El Paso’s future” the most valuable resource we have is not anything we have built or we are about to build, it is the people who live here and the natural ecosystem with its complex biodiversity. The Castner Range helps to protect that biodiversity and the last thing we need to do is to allow the current threat of urban sprawl to spread any further into the Franklins. Already we can see that we are about to lose the magnificent wilderness vistas on the west side to the developers who have recently announced the coming of their army of bulldozers to begin another chapter of destruction along Trans Mountain Road.
The Castners offer hope for our community and the Chihuahuan Desert is this part of North America. Can’t we learn to share the earth with native animals and plants?
I encourage you to learn more about efforts to protect the Castner Range by attending the Poppies Celebration, visiting franklinmountains.org and by becoming a member of the Franklin Mountains Coalition.
