“We live in grasslands, and we live off them,” write
biologists Carl and Jane Bock. “They are our backyards, in an
evolutionary if no longer always in a literal sense.” For more than
three decades, the Bocks have studied humanity’s backyard,
mostly in the form of an 8,000-acre former cattle ranch in
southeastern Arizona. On the Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch, an
Audubon Society preserve not grazed since the late 1960s, the Bocks
observe grasses, birds and other species both native and exotic,
searching for clues to a past before livestock and firefighting.
This collection of brief essays about their work conveys
the Bocks’ affection for the subtleties of grasslands, and
for the variety of people who live in them and off them. With clear
explanations and tart asides, the Bocks consider diverse topics:
the traveling habits of pronghorn, the collusion of jays and
flickers, the local etiquette regarding summer rainfall —
don’t assume your neighbor got as much as you did — and
the many gut-level reasons to conserve biodiversity.
Humans have altered grasslands more than any other of the
world’s major ecosystems, they write, making the protection
of grasslands’ remaining genetic and environmental resources
all the more important.
“The point of conservation in the
Sonoita Valley is not to preserve some sort of wilderness that
probably never existed,” they note. “It is to make room at the
table for other grassland species that call it home in addition to
ourselves, wherever and whenever that is possible.”
Photographer Stephen Strom documents tiny moments of grassland
glory, revealing a flaming-yellow bloom of duckweed in a catchment
basin, snow caught in the creases of an agave, and the glowing
centers of lilies and poppies. The photographs appear in a series
of small, isolated frames, emphasizing that in this place, true
appreciation requires close observation.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The grasslands — humanity’s big backyard.
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