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Reviewed by:
  • A New Plateau: Sustaining the Lands and Peoples of Canyon Country
  • Dennis Martinez (bio)
A New Plateau: Sustaining the Lands and Peoples of Canyon Country Peter Friederici and Rose Houk, editors. 2004. Minneapolis: Renewing the Countryside. Paper. $24.95. ISBN: 978-0-9713391-6-3. 159 pages.

This is a book with a wealth of practical tidbits that will be of interest to gardeners, farmers, ranchers, wildcrafters, alternative energy geeks, sustainable builders, cooks—and ecological and ecocultural restorationists. It is about a brave bioregionalism at the ground level, containing 38 vignettes from the Colorado Plateau of the Greater Southwest of the United States that tell the stories of an inspired group of people who are living and working sustainably on and with the land: old-timers and newly arrived alike, of Hispanic, Anglo, and Basque cultures, who are putting down roots in a region noted for harsh climate extremes of heat and cold, unpredictable rainfall, and a bone-dry environment (the Plateau is in the worst drought in 1,400 years); and Native Americans whose roots go back millennia but who are now adapting their traditions to changing modern conditions. These are stories of people living on reservations and ranches, cities, tiny hamlets, and rural countrysides who are experimenting with wind and solar energy, sustainable food harvesting and building appropriate to a high-desert environment, and using renewable by-products of forest restoration.

Robert G. Breuning of the Museum of Northern Arizona, a sponsor of this book along with the Northern Arizona University’s (NAU) Center for Sustainable Environments, writes in his forward that these folks are “asserting a new kind of citizenship on the Plateau—a citizenship that extends beyond the political realm to root itself in a deep respect for, and a renewed reliance on, the nature of their region.” He calls them “cultural pioneers” who are attempting to kick the habit of dependence on industrially produced goods (coming from over 1,100 km away, on average) to move to locally produced, crafted, and stewarded resources unique to this region.

A New Plateau could be an interesting read for people who love to learn new ways to grow plants, raise animals, and build and live sustainably. It gives concrete meaning to a concept that is used all too frequently without really understanding what it means on the ground. Many of the folks featured here have only recently made the Plateau their home and are avid—and successful—experimenters and entrepreneurs. Like Rebecca Routson of Lost Cabin Ranch in Chino Valley, Arizona, who grows a minimum of row crops while focusing her energy on growing wild and cultivated crops together in scattered small patches situated in microniches with wind protection and microclimates that can add two weeks to the short growing season. Ecological restorationists and gardeners alike will appreciate these examples of matching plants to appropriate microsites. This style of gardening is reminiscent of traditional Pueblo as well as Mayan and other Indigenous gardens that appear messy and uncontrolled at first sight, but upon closer examination are found to be carefully planned so that every microsite is filled with an environmentally appropriate plant, both well-adapted wild landraces and cultivated heirloom varieties.

Morgan Yassie, Navajo (Diné) from Seba Kalkai, Arizona, advocated drip irrigation as an alternative to some kinds of traditional dryland farming because of unusual drought conditions but continues to farm a nonirrigated cornfield that is situated where it catches natural runoff from summer monsoon rains. Victor Masayesua Sr. (Hopi) from Black Mesa, Arizona, plants adapted heirloom blue flour corn whose seedlings’ roots reach a foot into the dry soil. His nonirrigated fields have flourished while those of his Diné, Anglo, and Hispanic neighbors’ fields have withered.

Raising livestock has allowed peoples all over the world to live in arid regions and has a long tradition in the Southwest. The Diné community group Sheep Is Life (Diné Béiia), is shepherding tough Churro sheep, the oldest continuously produced breed in North America. So is the Hispanic Manzanares family of northern New Mexico. Once nearly extinct following the U.S. government’s stock reduction program on the Diné and Hopi reservations in the 1930s, Churros are now...

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