October 3, 2024 | By:

Restore & More, a Film by Kenyon Fields

 

 

On a remote and beautiful ranch in western Colorado, Mary Conover and Kenyon Fields are attempting to restore a portion of the Little Delores River and Pinion Mesa. The husband and wife team is working with NGOs as well as state and federal agencies to restore native grasses and sages to pastures and aspen trees to uplands. Along the Little Dolores River the two, with the help of volunteers and the Youth Conservation Corps, are removing invasive Russian Olive and replanting native willow and cottonwood.

The river has been slowed down and therefore deepened so as to slowly flood nearby fields.  Beavers have returned to the Little Dolores Valley and are helping improve the already-begun damming, further enhancing the new wetlands.

This inspiring and instructive film is a “how to” for land owners and agencies to restore and repair working lands after a century of grazing cattle and sheep. The changing climate and prolonged drought that the ranch is experiencing are slowing down the restoration of Mountain Island Ranch, but slowly and certainly the private and public lands on Pinion Meas are recovering.

What an inspiration to know that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employees can be involved in restoration work. Not simply involved, but enthusiastically so! A shining example of how our federal agencies can be used to restore and repair lands damaged by past agency policies and practices.

Before and after images of the work being done at Mountain Island Ranch demonstrate the direction and the degree to which their hard work has succeeded. This film should be viewed and studied by conservationists everywhere who are faced with degraded and invaded landscapes from past archaic practices.

Here at The Rewilding Institute, we frequently field emails and requests from landowners of varying acreage for information, resources, and potential funding for such restoration work. This film has informed us on how landowners can begin the not-so-long journey back to sustainable living on the land. It has also acted as a source of a much rarer resource in the conservation community: hope.

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