TO PROTECT & CELEBRATE
Gila River Festival focuses on the area’s importance
As the lifeblood of the Gila Wilderness Areas — the country’s first designated wilderness area — the Gila River also is New Mexico’s last undammed river.
Additionally, it is listed as the No. 1 United States’ Most Endangered River of 2019 by the organization American Rivers.
So celebrating its importance and planning to safeguard its future is at the heart of the 15th Annual Gila River Festival, Sept. 19-22 in Silver City.
“The festival really showcases the role of the Gila River as a centerpiece in southwest New Mexico’s natural and cultural heritage, said Allyson Siwik, director of the Gila River Conservation Coalition, which is organizing the event. “The Gila River Festival is an opportunity to experience firsthand the river, and its natural and cultural history in the area.”
The four days of the event will include workshops, lectures, guided field trips, music and community arts projects, said festival coordinator Donna Stevens.
“The Gila River Festival is a powerful way to bring people together around the importance of the Gila River and the need to protect it for everyone,” she said. “We’ve got an exciting lineup of guest speakers, field trips and workshops. There is something fun and interesting for everyone.”
Among the highlights, Siwik said, are trips to the Mogollon Box, where the Mogollon Creeks meets the Gila, and the Lower Gila Box.
The Mogollon Box includes eight miles of the Gila and its tributaries, and is one of the leading areas susceptible to damaging diversion proposals.
And the Lower Box is a desert jewel 20 miles north of Lordsburg. Since livestock were banned from the river valley in 1990, a bosque of cottonwood, willows, and other riparian and aquatic vegetation has taken hold. The area now provides some of the best birding in New Mexico, with about 200 species to make it one of the highest bird diversities in the state. The area provides habitat for many rare and unusual birds, including Bell’s vireo, peregrine, golden eagle, several hawk varieties, yellow-billed cuckoo, Gila woodpecker and Abert’s
towhee.
“People will be learning about birds, butterflies, wildlife and wildlife corridors,” Siwak said.
Other field trips will visit the Nature Conservancy’s Gila River Farm, and another to Mulberry Canyon to examine the work that has been going on there through the Axle Canyon Preserve.
A special rock art field trip will allow visitors to learn about local ancient cultures, like the Mimbres,” Siwak said.
“Scientists think the Mimbres disappeared because of long-term drought and here we are nearing another longterm drought,” she said. “So that’s very important. We’re having programming through the arts, humanities and natural sciences.”
The festival has been gaining recognition on a regional, and even national, basis, Siwak said, with attendees approaching 2,000 annually.
“It has gained prominence throughout New Mexico and Arizona, so we get people coming from all over,” she said. “We had a person last year come from London, England. People come from all over. We get birders come to add to their life list. We’ve got an amazing, special place here with national importance since it was the first federally designated wilderness areas and first wilderness river.”
Climate activist Tim DeChristopher, who spent 21 months in jail after his act of civil disobedience to disrupt a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas auction for parcels around Utah’s Arches and Canyonlands national parks, will give the keynote speech.
Other speakers include Sharman Apt Russell, a John Burroughs awardee for “Distinguished Nature Writing and author of Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist”; San Carlos Apache Tribe youth activist Naelyn Pike, who will discuss how the Apache have defended the sacred Oak Flat near Tucson from a proposed mine; and Guggenheim Fellow landscape photographer Michael Berman, who will share his stories about and photographs of wolves, snow leopards and Coues deer, and the wild places in Mexico and Mongolia.