Arizona opinion: Permanently protect the Great Bend of the Gila

To those who live here, it’s no surprise that Arizona is one of the fastest growing and water-consumptive states: In the Phoenix area alone 2.2 billion gallons of water are used per day — more than twice as much as New York City, despite half as many people. As private lands that contain precious groundwater sources are gobbled up for development, that leaves public lands more vulnerable and more valuable for wildlife and the health of the ecosystem as a whole.

As a recent graduate of Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability, I spent years learning and understanding the importance of maintaining healthy biodiverse ecosystems, as they are essential to sustaining life on earth and combating climate change. For example, saguaro cacti, which are only able to grow in the Sonoran, play an important role in sequestering and storing carbon. A mature saguaro cactus stores the carbon equivalent of about 40 gallons of gasoline, even after it dies.

The Sonoran Desert is a valuable region that will help protect climate-critical species like the saguaro cactus for years to come, and it’s important that we Arizonans work to conserve healthy, intact ecosystems.

A gem of the Sonoran is the Great Bend of the Gila, a stretch of river valley that follows the Gila River through public land between the cities of Phoenix and Yuma. Since 2008, Congressman Raúl Grijalva has been working alongside tribes to permanently protect the Great Bend of the Gila by way of congressional legislation.

In the Great Bend, you are surrounded by some of the Sonoran’s richest biodiversity, by reminders of millennia of human history, and by the sweet smell of creosote. Here the perennial waters of the Gila River support an abundance of life, from the endangered Sonoran pronghorn to Gila monsters, from carbon-sequestering powerhouses like saguaros to Mexican poppies, and from the great egret to the little cactus wren. This area also functions as a safe wildlife corridor for animals traveling throughout the desert. In an area experiencing habitat fragmentation due to roadways and urban sprawl, corridors like these are essential for ensuring the survival of many wildlife species.

These same lands and waters have provided physical and cultural sustenance to Indigenous communities in the southwest for thousands of years. Their descendants include members of the Ak-Chin Indian Community, Cocopah Indian Tribe, Colorado River Indian Tribes, Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, Fort Yuma-Quechan Indian Tribe, Gila River Indian Community, Hopi Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Tohono O’odham Nation, Yavapai-Apache Nation, and Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe. Protecting this culturally significant landscape respects and honors the people who have lived here since time immemorial, and provides access needed to continue Indigenous practices and traditions.

The Great Bend of the Gila has withstood the test of time and continues to provide invaluable climate and cultural benefits to this day, but it cannot be expected to endure in the face of relentless urbanization. Permanently protecting the Great Bend is essential so that we may continue to benefit from, and enjoy, these irreplaceable resources far into the future. It’s time to permanently protect the Great Bend of the Gila.