Sonoran

News

ISSUE NO. 2, MAY 2001

INFORMATION YOU SHOULD KNOW
ABOUT THE SONORAN DESERT CONSERVATION
AND COMPREHENSIVE LAND USE PLAN

PROTECT THE IRONWOOD FOREST
NATIONAL MONUMENT DESIGNATION
Raúl M. Grijalva, Chairman, Pima County Board of Supervisors

A

monument is a lasting reminder of
something noble and great. As a
reminder, it informs future generations
about the aspirations and achievements of those
who built or declared the monument. Only a confident community can make such a proclamation.
The recently designated Ironwood Forest National Monument is Southern Arizona’s statement
of what we believe is noble, great, and should last
forever. Our Monument is being reviewed now, by
interests in Washington D.C. who would like to
find an excuse to return the destiny of these protected lands to mining and development.
I would like to describe why I think it is
important that we continue to express our commitment to the Ironwood Forest National
Monument as a reflection of our conservation
ethic, and commitment to future citizens of
Southern Arizona.

Public Space and its Role in Defining our
Community
The next generation of historians, cultural specialists, and the public in general will assess Arizona as a state that has been proud to provide
public spaces.
Our public realm, and therefore our sense
of community, is upheld by the ancient architecture of our mountains,
saguaro, ironwood, and the
natural systems and cultural
resources they support. We
have come to a decision
point. Without an awareness
of the importance of natural
contributions to our sense of

community, and without a commitment to preserving and protecting the natural environment, we will lose one of the strongest unifying
forces of our community ethic, and we will be
unable to regain this in the future.
A mistaken course of past land use laws, resource exploitation, and the single-minded
course of economic progress require our active
commitment to the protection of landscapes
now. We must change past practices and even
the laws that have allowed these valuable areas
to be taken away from us. And we must speak
out more, to express how we feel about this
topic to people who do not live here or understand what is in our hearts.

Public Space and Who We Are
The dimensions of public space and their different values can be felt as you drive from downtown Tucson to the Ironwood Forest National
Monument and pass through four worlds. The
first is the urban environment of Tucson with
its buildings, highway, channelized washes and
mining operations that mark up the riparian
corridor of the Santa Cruz. The second is the
flatland of Marana’s agricultural setting with its
narrow irrigation ditches supporting vast expanses of farm land. The third is the scrubby
arid buffer land that connects agricultural lands
to the Silverbell Mountains. And the fourth is
the dense forest of saguaro cacti and ironwood
trees that surround the Silverbell Mountains, so
rich that you feel it when you have passed into
this other dimension of public space, and you
understand first hand the need to protect the
area. Ragged Top Mountain, the centerpiece of

“If local and national decision makers
were really listening to the people of
Southern Arizona, they would hear the
unity in our voice, and respect our vision
about the importance of public space in
defining our community and heritage.”
–Raúl M. Grijalva

Pima County, Arizona
Board of Supervisors
Ann Day, District 1
Dan Eckstrom, District 2
Sharon Bronson,
District 3
Raymond J. Carroll,
District 4
Raúl M. Grijalva,
Chairman, District 5
County Administrator
Chuck Huckelberry

the Silverbells, is itself noble
and great. These are four dimensions of our public space,
all important, but some more
vulnerable than others.
This diversity of space is
matched by diversity within
our community. At numerous
public meetings held in the
months before the designation
of the Ironwood Forest National Monument, support for
monument status was expressed by the adjacent landowners, scientists and cultural
resource experts, ranchers and
the conservation community, the business sector, and governments ranging from the Tohono
O’odham Nation to the Pinal County and Pima
County Boards of Supervisors.
I believe that the broad and spirited community support for the designation of the
Ironwood Forest National Monument is an indication that we have not asked for enough in
the way of preservation, and that we have
overestimated the meaning of prior defeats of
protection efforts. Years before the designation, a drawn out community process that
reflected near unanimous support for protecting Ragged Top Mountain as a wilderness area
was flicked away in the end, when a single
interest generated a moment of fear within
Congress about the potential for small mining
claim holders to emerge in numbers. We must not let this happen again.

they would hear the unity in our voice, and respect our vision about the importance of public
space in defining our community and heritage.
It is in our interest to speak more often on
these matters, to have a greater awareness of the
risk of silence, and to feel more empowered by
the fact that we agree about the importance of
protecting natural and cultural resources.
The Ironwood Forest National Monument,
if we can protect it, will represent us well to future generations, conveying this message
through its lasting ancient nobility more effectively than our spoken aspirations of this day
ever could.
The quest to sustain the Ironwood Forest
National Monument is simply about legacy and
respect — a legacy about who we are and where
we choose to live, and a respect
for our community and how
we choose to live.

Public Space and How We
Will Be Remembered
If local and national decision makers were really
listening to the people
of Southern Arizona,

Visit the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan Web site at www.SDCPonline.org.
Sonoran News is produced by Pima County Graphic Services.
To get more information about the Ironwood Forest
National Monument and the Sonoran Desert
Conservation Plan, call 740-8162 or write to:
Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan
County Administrator’s Office
130 West Congress, 10th Floor
Tucson, AZ 85701.
The Board of Supervisors welcomes
your written comments.
Design and layout by Peter Corrao, illustrations by Bill Singleton, Pima County Graphic Services.