Sonoita Plain: Views from a Southwestern Grassland - Softcover

Bock, Carl E.; Jane H. Bock; Strom, Stephen E.

9780816523627: Sonoita Plain: Views from a Southwestern Grassland

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0816523622 ISBN 13: 9780816523627

Publisher: University of Arizona Press, 2005

Far to the south of Arizona’s sprawling metropolises, a rolling savanna of grass, oak, and mesquite rises above the surrounding deserts. The Sonoita Plain is a basin of a thousand square miles bracketed by mountains, a land once the domain of cowboys that is now more and more the focus of exurban development. These southwestern grasslands are both typical of and distinct from those of the Great Plains—similarly shaped by drought, grazing, and fire, but with a different flora and fauna, and the product of a different human history.

The Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch is a tract of 8,000 acres on the Sonoita Plain that was established in 1968 by the Appleton family and that is now part of the sanctuary system of the National Audubon Society. To all appearances, it is an ordinary piece of land, but for the last 35 years it has been treated in an extraordinary way—by leaving it alone. No grazing to influence grass production. No dam building to hold back flash floods. No pest control. No fire-fighting. By employing such non-action, might we gain a glimpse of what this land was like hundreds, even thousands, of years ago?

Through essays and photographs focusing on the Sanctuary and surrounding area, this book reveals the complex ecology and unique aesthetics of its grasslands and savannas. Carl and Jane Bock and Stephen Strom share a passion for the remarkable beauty found here, and in their book they describe its environment, biodiversity, and human history. People have dominated the world’s grasslands and savannas for so long that today we have no clear idea what these lands might be like without us. By understanding the lessons of the Sonoita Plain, we might gain such insight—and, more important, discover approaches to protecting the very things that attract us to such lands in the first place.

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From the Back Cover:

"In an era when advocates for nature sometimes do convincing imitations of the most smug and self-righteous religious believers, condemning sin in others and ignoring it in themselves, the Bocks and Strom are a refreshing exception. . . . [They] show us how to be both Naturalist and Humanist, warning us, instructing us, amusing us, and raising our spirits at the same time." --Patricia Nelson Limerick, author of Something in the Soil "I can say from personal experience that the Sonoita grasslands are worth both knowing and preserving--and Sonoita Plain should help people to do both." --Paul R. Ehrlich, author of Human Natures "This good-humored, highly knowledgeable book is suffused with great affection for the grasslands of southern Arizona and their inhabitants, the various grasses, the Botteri's sparrows, the diamondback rattlesnakes, and even the people of this most admirable ecosystem. I enjoyed every page." --John Alcock, author of In a Desert Garden "A perceptive exploration in words and photographs of a land in transition. The forces of nature and the hand of man will dictate the ultimate fate of this unique region and the reader is left hoping that the consequences of 'loving this land too well' will not prove to be its undoing." --John P. Schaefer, author of Basic Techniques of Photography

About the Author:

Carl E. Bock and Jane H. Bock have been professors of biology at the University of Colorado since 1968 and served as co-directors of the Research Ranch Sanctuary for eleven years. Together they authored The View from Bald Hill: Thirty Years in an Arizona Grassland. Stephen E. Strom's photography is housed in several major archives, including the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson and the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, and he is co-author, with Joy Harjo, of Secrets from the Center of the World. Dr. Strom currently is Associate Director for Science at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

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