Episode 164: Cuenca Los Ojos – A Rewilding Success Story Still Being Written with Valerie Gordon
December 29, 2025
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Valerie Gordon, executive director of Cuenca Los Ojos. Photo by Jorge Chacón
About Valerie and Cuenca Los Ojos
Valerie Gordon’s conservation work spans more than two decades focused on endangered species, water, rangeland, and wildlife habitat. Most notably, she spearheaded the transition of Cuenca Los Ojos, a family foundation started by her mother, Valer Clark, into a non-profit that promotes land restoration in the U.S. and Mexico. Today, Cuenca Los Ojos manages a 121,000-acre protected preserve in northern Mexico and is dedicated to restoring wetlands, grasslands, and wildlife habitat on the U.S.-Mexico border. Valerie previously served as director of The Nature Conservancy’s Merced County Grasslands Program, where she worked to protect a vast vernal pool grassland in California’s Central Valley in support of endangered species conservation.
Show Notes
Cuenca Los Ojos is the epicenter of rewilding in northern Mexico. The organization was initially focused on watershed restoration through human-led interventions, and is now entering a new phase by reintroducing native animals as ecosystem engineers. Over the last 30 years, Cuenca has implemented large-scale landscape restoration, resulting in significant ecological improvements, including perennial water flow, increased biodiversity, and the return of native species such as beavers, birds, and bison. The organization addresses ongoing challenges with vegetation management, climate change, and balancing human and wildlife needs, while working to engage local communities and develop eco-tourism. Partnerships and adaptive management are central to Cuenca’s mission to restore and sustain this unique ecosystem.
Key topics:
- History and evolution of Cuenca’s restoration work
- Watershed and soil restoration techniques
- Transition to animal-based ecosystem engineering (rewilding)
- Ecological impacts: water restoration, biodiversity, and wildlife return
- Challenges: vegetation management, climate change, invasive species
- Community engagement and eco-tourism
- Infrastructure and wildlife corridors (e.g., Highway 2)
- Reintroduction and management of bison and other native species
Extra Credit
- Visit Cuenca’s extensive website and learn about their magnificent wildlands, programs, volunteering, visiting, and other ways you can get involved!
- Creatures of the Starlight: Looking for El Tigre in Sonora
- Scientists put motion cameras along the U.S.-Mexico border to spy on wildlife. The footage is spectacular – and telling.
Director of Digital Outreach (D.O.D.O.) for The Rewilding Institute
Host and Producer of the Rewilding Earth Podcast
Jack started Rewilding work as Executive Director of Sky Island Alliance in the mid-1990’s, organizing the Sky Island Wildlands Network design, ripping up illegal roads on forest service lands, installing wolf acclimatization pens on Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch & conducting howling surveys to help make way for the final stage of the Lobo reintroduction program in the Southwest.
Through the years, Jack has worked with Dave Foreman and the Rewilding Gang to further Rewilding initiatives and education.