IN SPRING 2019, blossom-topped hedgehog cacti lined hiking trails and abundant wildflowers swarmed islands of palo verde trees and saguaros in Arizona’s Catalina State Park. Yet many of these plants would die the following year when the 120,000-acre Bighorn Fire burned a third of this stunning Sonoran desertscrub landscape. The blaze, sparked by a lightning strike just north of Tucson, exemplifies a new dynamic of worsening desert wildfires that are impacting beloved Southwestern landscapes and endangering nearby communities.

Large fires in Desert Southwest landscapes were rarely noted during the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries. But since 2005, nine mega-fires above 100,000 acres have burned in the Sonoran Desert and adjacent landscapes. Wildfire frequency is also increasing. In the Tonto National Forest outside Phoenix, home to vast expanses of saguaros, one study reported an approximate threefold increase in wildfires from 2000 through 2020 relative to the prior 20 years.

The Southwest’s desert ecosystems are young, says desert ecologist Benjamin Wilder, director of Next Generation Sonoran Desert Researchers, a cross-discipline, multinational coalition focused on biocultural conservation. “Things have kind of just gotten here,” he said regarding the region’s flora. With climate change, an expanding human population, and the incursion of nonnative grasses driving this new fire regime, scientists and land managers are racing to understand how the Southwest’s still-evolving plant communities are responding.

Journalist Anna Marija Helt digs into the growing fire risk in the Southwest, unexpected desert resilience, and the dedicated people working to preserve this unique landscape.

Photo by Lon&Queta/Flickr

We often overlook the creatures living right under our noses. But, as Thor Hanson writes, “biological mysteries occur everywhere, even in the most urbanized landscapes on the face of the planet.” And they warrant more exploration. (Noema)

Formerly redlined neighborhoods across the United States suffer from more frequent power outages, underpowered electrical services, and high energy bills. In these same neighborhoods, poverty often limits access to renewable energy. (Floodlight)

Across the American “Broiler Belt,” chickens are raised in conditions that are bad for the birds, bad for the people who raise them, and bad the environment. Some Southern poultry farmers are looking for a better way forward. (The Bitter Southerner)

“As Cuba struggles with soaring three-digit inflation, widespread rationing of food, fuel, and public services, and a GDP drop of 12 percent since 2019, its ecosystems are quietly collapsing,” writes Vinicius Pereira. The country’s US terrorism designation only makes things worse. (The Revelator)