On the Wild Border, A Revival of Nature

Between the United States and Mexico, where the Continental Divide bisects the deserts of Chihuahua and Sonora, lies one of the most vital wildlife corridors in the hemisphere. This is a big, unpeopled place, dominated by sprawling cattle ranches, home to lions, beavers, coyotes -- and plenty of dope smugglers. There is the rare black hawk and 400 species of bee. Within miles of each other, you might see parrots and bison, and also trash piles left by wandering migrants trying to cross over the international frontier. The Mexican government wants to reintroduce the gray wolf in the corridor in a project similar to the one that brought wolves back to Yellowstone National Park. Scientists have found jaguar here, and also drug runners with AK-47s leading a forced march of men carrying bales of marijuana. Austin, 67, is a well-to-do artist from the Upper East Side of New York who moved to the Southwest desert 25 years ago with her husband, Josiah, a Dallas investor. The couple bought a ranch in Arizona, then two more in Mexico. To recharge wetlands and revive rivers, the Austins and their ranch hands, with bulldozers, have erected thousands of low rock dams along the creek beds in Mexico, which usually run dry before the summer monsoons bring water back to the Sonoran desert all at once. "What we're doing is what nature would do if we weren't here," she said. The Austins are part of a growing movement of eco-ranchers along the border. The best known is the Malpai Borderlands Group along the Arizona-New Mexico state line, a coalition of landowners, scientists, environmentalists and the government working to protect endangered wildlife and endangered ranchers. Austin is beginning to organize a similar group in Mexico...WPost