<<Prev Home PDF Next>>
come
from deep in the bled or countryside. People squat on their haunches
haggling for goods. Listening to the conversations, I am reminded of
the easy interactions I have seen between the Diné when speaking in
their native tongue at rug auctions or other large gatherings on and
around the rez. Another echo.
One
tent sells traditional spices; piles of red, green, and yellow protrude
from cloth sacks; the merchant sits in the back, ready to wrap a
measure of spice in a newsprint package for the customer to take home.
Next to the spice stall, a tent sells televisions and cellular phones;
the old and the new, side by side. Vegetable stalls sell everything
from melons to zucchini. On normal days, the town is quiet; people go
about their business, only coming out to recreate after sundown, when
the work is finished in the felds.
over the course of centuries.
At
a pivotal point on my walk I found myself ascending a high mountain
valley, heading for a misty pass. Rain was falling lightly and the
clouds hung low, shrouding the summits above me. I was a day’s walk
from the nearest road when I reached the saddle. What I saw on the
other side was unbelievable. It was as if I was gazing into another
world; a different Atlas than the one that lay at my back. The valley
was steep and rugged; I could see no trail of any kind that was to lead
me down. It was of the same pale stone as the mountains around my
village, but there was one important difference: it was filled, wall to
wall, with cedars. Huge Atlas Cedars with fat, spreading canopies and
massive trunks. Greek oaks formed the understory and the forest looked
vibrant and healthy. I spent that night deep in the valley with a
Berber family, curled up on the dirt foor next to their woodstove as a
cold rain fell outside.
From
this experience I realized that this was what all of these mountains
had looked like at one point, that these now barren hills had been
covered in thick, mysterious forests, like I had seen that day, and
shrouded in mists. Looking at my research I read about the animals that
are said to have lived here: the Atlas Bear, Barbary Lion, Striped
Hyena, several species of gazelle, and even a species of elk. All of
these are now extinct, or else have been driven from these mountains
into other areas where they can survive. Incredibly enough, the small
impact from the pastoral farmers who scratch out a living in these
mountains had nearly destroyed an ecosystem. Like water eroding stone,
little by little, the ancient Atlas had been swept away by a slow human
tide.
I
know how easy it is to look out at the Colorado Plateau and bask in the
wonder of its pristine wildness; there are so many areas that remain
relatively untouched and unknown—places that seem beyond our reach.
Granted, Glen Canyon was once one of those places, and look what
happened there. Overall, though, the southwest is still wild, the
damages done are still reversible. But here I look daily upon the end
result of even a light existence on a delicate land. We think that we
are the only ones to destroy our environment, that it is a relatively
new phenomenon, what with big industry and human-accelerated climate
change. But it seems to me that destruction of our habitat is an
ancient human tradition; do not forget that Mesa Verde was almost
entirely deforested when the Anasazi moved on. Environmental
degradation is nothing new, but being aware of it is. Perhaps the way
to preserve our world is not, as many have theorized, simply a way of
life that we have forgotten; perhaps it is something we are only
beginning to discover.
The Atlas Mountains
Incredibly enough, the small impact from the pastoral farmers
who scratch out a living in these mountains
had nearly destroyed an ecosystem.
Like water eroding stone, little by little,
the ancient Atlas had been swept away
by a slow human tide.
Sitting
here at my desk, during one of the many long nights of Ramadan, I look
back and think on all the things I have learned in the past 6
months—how much I have seen, and how much is yet to come. Winter is
sweeping in; it will be snowing in a few short months. I have seen so
much and yet so little. For now, all I can do is sit back and observe.
I have no doubt that my perspectives will continue to shift as I live
here; the seasons will change, fowers will bloom and die, and felds
will be sown and harvested. As these things change outside, so must I
change within; hopefully the perspective I gain, and the lessons I
learn can be taken back to the Southwest, and applied in service to the
land that I love.
But
the village is only half of my life; the other half is spent in the
mountains. My village is the gateway to the 135,000 acre Eastern High
Atlas National Park, which is what I am specifcally assigned to work
on, based on my background with the NPS. The EHANP is beautiful and is
home to many people and animals. There are five major villages inside
its borders and I hope to do work with the people who live there. It is
a pristine expanse of mountain wilderness, interspersed with islands of
civilization; at least this is how it seemed at frst. This was before I
realized just what had happened to this place.
“The
views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the
author and do not refect the views or opinions of the U.S. Government”
CHARLIE
KOLB is almost a native Coloradan,and has worked as a seasonal ranger
for the National Park Service, but will be working with the Peace Corps
until 2012.
The Zephyr looks forward to sharing-regular reports from Charlie.
You can also follow him via his blogs:
Looking
out over the mountains, they seem to have been bare for an eternity; no
trees grow on their fanks, and their color is all in shades of grey,
yellow, and brown. They give the appearance of being much higher than
they actually are; the elevation of my village is around 7000 feet, the
mountains top out around 10,000 feet. But it all appears to be above
timberline, which at this latitude should be around 12,000 feet. I was
perplexed; I thought that maybe the lack of trees was due to the desert
climate, but soon realized that we received more than adequate rain and
snow to support at least a dryland forest, like the Pinyon-Juniper
forests of the Southwest.
At
the same time, I realized there was no wildlife; no deer browsed the
fields or canyons, and no coyotes wailed in the night. Not that I
expected American fauna, but I had at least expected an ecological
equivalent—something to at least fll the niches that I knew had to be
here. I began to do research and I took an extensive hike through the
heart of the park. What I found was a sobering lesson, a story of an
ecosystem slowly extinguished