The Missing Migrant Program is meant to prevent deaths. Instead, it may be causing them.
Desert
Posted inIssues
What to make of land art in the era of LandBack
‘City,’ a massive outdoor sculpture in Nevada, took Michael Heizer 50 years to make. Today, it is met with a mixture of scrutiny and awe.
Posted inJune 2024: The Idea of Wilderness
Learning how to live and die with long COVID
The late artist David Wojnarowicz’s work has brought me back from the dead.
Posted inArticles
Audio: The Joshua tree-yucca moth link
These desert species wouldn’t survive without the other. Can they weather climate change together?
Posted inApril 2024: Epic Journeys
Reflections on Barry Lopez
Terry Tempest Williams contemplates her friendship with the late author and what he left behind.
Posted inMarch 2024: Fertile Ground
The desert’s Radical Faeries
How a gathering of gay men in the Sonoran Desert started a worldwide movement rooted in nature.
Posted inNovember 1, 2023: November 1, 2023
How Green River celebrates its melon farmers
Thousands turn out for Melon Days, but the future looks uncertain.
Posted inArticles
The National Park Service’s efforts to protect Quitobaquito Springs almost destroyed it
‘Indigenous presence is vital to the stewardship of the land.’
Posted inArticles
What are the real impacts on Burning Man’s playa?
Viral attention on Black Rock City’s annual festival highlight environmental consequences.
Posted inArticles
Scene from a Mojave oasis
Our reporter’s notebook from a stretch of road in the Nevada desert.
Posted inArticles
A weed is swallowing the Sonoran Desert
The invasive Stinknet plant fuels wildfires, irritates lungs and smothers native flora. ‘It’s everywhere’ and removal efforts in Arizona can’t keep up.
Posted inJanuary 1, 2023: Ripple Effects
Why are Saudi farmers pumping Arizona groundwater?
A conversation with Natalie Koch, author of ‘Arid Empire: The Entangled Fates of Arabia and Arizona.’
Posted inJune 1, 2022: A Legacy of Weapons and War
Witness to the Cold War in the desert
Terry Tempest Williams on Emmet Gowin’s unflinching photos of the Nevada Test Site.
Posted inJune 1, 2022: A Legacy of Weapons and War
poem after a poem by césar vallejo w/ a nod to donald justice
A poem by Jay Hopler.
Posted inArticles
Searching for the lost: The people called to find missing migrants
Many Aguilas del Desierto volunteers once crossed the dangerous desert in the Borderlands themselves.
Posted inJuly 1, 2021: An Urban Greenspace Revolution
A hallucinogenic toad in peril
How a Sonoran Desert species got caught up in the commodification of spiritual awakening.
Posted inMarch 1, 2021: The Rough Road Ahead
In Nogales, joy endures
The Borderlands may be militarized, but for writer Alberto Ríos, it’s still home.
Posted inMarch 1, 2021: The Rough Road Ahead
The alternatives to Instagram-ready desert art
Popular installations often frame the desert as austere and inhospitable. But there are artists who look at the land differently.