Informe de la cabecera de cuenca del río Colorado

Para comprender a plenitud a alguien, debes comenzar por su
nacimiento. Por lo tanto, Michelle y yo pasamos los últimos dos días buscando
la cabecera de cuenca del río Colorado entre el frío y la nieve que se
encuentran arriba de la zona de La Poudre Pass, al norte del Parque Nacional de
las Montañas Rocosas. El acceso se hace por la carretera Long Draw, que sale de
la autopista 14 de Colorado. La carretera Long Draw es un camino serpenteante
de terracería lleno de baches que atraviesa 22 km de bosques de pinos y abetos
y pasa por el reservorio Long Draw antes de terminar abruptamente en una
llanura de sauces.

Descubrimos que la carretera estaba cubierta con una pulgada de lodo escarchado
que requería que manejáramos a velocidades bajas para evitar resbalar y caer en
las zanjas de la carretera. El trayecto del viaje nos sirvió como periodo de
preparación para entender mejor el lugar de nacimiento del río Colorado. La
aspereza e incesantes baches de la carretera, combinados con las temperaturas
bajo cero, nos hacían cuestionarnos si realmente tomábamos en serio la visita a
la cabecera de cuenca del río Colorado. Me preocupaba que la Toyota Previa 1991
de Michelle no fuera capaz de soportar el camino, pero la camioneta cumplió las
expectativas que le permitieron lograr ser objeto de culto.

El trayecto de Long Draw pronosticó la violencia que encontraríamos en la
cabecera del río. Enormes extensiones de bosques talados por completo
flanquearon la carretera hasta llegar al desfiladero. El servicio forestal ha
de ser demasiado perezoso al quitar árboles porque, conforme colapsaban,
dejaron algunos de ellos en la carretera; los empleados del servicio forestal
sencillamente talaron con sierras de cadena, a 50 m de ambos lados de la
carretera, cada árbol que encontraron a su paso. A 5 km del final del camino,
nos topamos con una larga represa de poca altura que retenía la escorrentía de
montaña en el reservorio de Long Draw. Teníamos la expectativa de encontrar un
entorno silvestre en La Poudre Pass, por lo que al llegar a la represa fue como
toparse con una pared en la obscuridad.

Las extensiones deforestadas, la represa y el reservorio que encontramos son
lesiones penosas, pero ninguna de ellas es tan mala como la Grand Ditch (Gran
Zanja). Caminamos 400 m desde el final del Long Draw, donde encontramos una
señal que marcaba el lugar de la cabecera del río. De camino a la señal,
pasamos una zanja de 10 m de profundidad y otros 10 m de ancho, la cual llevaba
el agua de oeste a este. Estábamos en el lado oeste de la división continental
donde el agua fluye naturalmente hacia el oeste. Contemplamos la magia negra
empleada por los ingenieros para lograr esta proeza. La zanja en La Poudre Pass
era tan llamativa como una cicatriz profunda a medio rostro de un humano.

La Gran Zanja se inició a finales de la década de 1880 y fue excavada en su
mayor parte por un batallón de japoneses armados con herramientas manuales y
pólvora. Se construyó para sacar el agua, desviándola de la cabecera del río
Colorado a las ciudades en desarrollo al este de la cordillera Front de
Colorado. Cerca de 60 cm de profundidad de aguas rápidas corrían a través de la
zanja. Aprendimos que, incluso antes de que la nieve acumulada logre derretirse
y formar los pequeños arroyos reconocibles como los orígenes del río Colorado,
el agua le es robada al río. Parado en medio del polvo, me pregunto si el agua
almacenada aquí terminará en el campo de golf del Fuerte Collins o si las
vaquitas marinas la agitarán entre sus aletas nadando en el Golfo de California.

Si estudias el nacimiento del río Colorado aprenderás que sus aguas nacen del
vientre silvestre conformado por las nubes de los duros inviernos, las elevadas
cumbres montañosas y la acumulación de nieve. Sin embargo, estas aguas emergen
de este vientre directamente a la explotación. En La Poudre Pass, este río
recibe la primera manifestación de violencia que le seguirá durante el resto de
su vida.

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 Fotografía © Michelle McCarron.

Prairie dog liberation campaign: report-back & video

The DGR Southwest Coalition recently held their annual Southwest Gathering, sharing skills & good food, and engaging in many discussions & strategy sessions. As part of the gathering, Deanna Meyer of Deep Green Resistance Colorado joined Brian Ertz of Wildlands Defense to discuss their recent campaign against a Castle Rock mega-mall development. We’ve reported here a little bit on the struggle, and are excited to share this video of Meyer and Ertz describing the campaign in more detail.

The campaign initially petitioned the developer to “do the right thing”: delay construction until June, so that threatened prairie dogs on-site could be relocated with the best chance of survival. Though this would leave the prairie dogs as refugees, displaced from their homes and with the rest of their community killed, at least they would have a chance to try to rebuild their lives. When the developer responded by poisoning the prairie dogs en masse (along with many others, human and nonhuman), the campaign focused on saving those who were left, and on creating an example of the developer by inflicting as much pain as possible.

The campaigners were unable to stop the development or to save all the prairie dogs, but their dedicated grassroots organizing succeeded at achieving their secondary objectives. They forced the developer to halt construction for months, allowing workers to rescue those prairie dogs who survived the mass slaughter. They’ve probably cost the developer millions of dollars and countless headaches, demonstrating the practical value to future developers of doing the right thing from the start.

Learn how these defenders of life leveraged their strengths to overcome a powerful opponent despite mainstream environmental groups saying “it can’t be done”, and how they plan to build on their win:

See more videos at the Deep Green Resistance Youtube channel

Fundraiser: systemic change to protect prairie dogs from developers

As we’ve reported here before, members of Deep Green Resistance Colorado, in partnership with Wildlands Defense, have been campaigning to protect a large prairie dog population from developers intent on building the largest mall in America. Many local Castle Rock, CO residents gave near-unanimous testimony on behalf of delaying construction a few months, to at least relocate the prairie dogs in a marginally humane manner before destroying their homes. Yet the town council and the developers collaborated to painfully gas the prairie dogs, to make “the problem” go away. (And to minimize the danger of any protected raptors, who predate on prairie dogs, complicating the project by being present at a required upcoming bird count.)

This behavior is unacceptable. Though the developers have already murdered many of the prairie dogs, there is still time to stop the developers from further slaughter. Equally important is the need to show that communities will impose repercussions on companies which behave in such a wantonly destructive and cruel manner, to send a message that such actions will not be profitable. If we can sufficiently damage their bottom line, it will help protect other communities against reckless corporations in the future.

To this end, prairie dog supporters have launched a fundraiser to support:

…a referendum on the zoned planning amendments that pave the way for the prospective Promenade mall. The referendum will give the people of Castle Rock the ability to decide if they want this development company, who just slaughtered in the cruelest way imaginable thousands of prairie dogs, to continue their development of the largest commercial property in the history of the town.

[…] The example in Castle Rock has the opportunity to cast a far-reaching message to all future developers that have prairie dog colonies on the land they plan to develop.

Please support this effort by visiting the prairie dog fundraiser page, spreading the word, and donating money if you possibly can.

Large prairie dog colony to be destroyed for shopping mall



Image by DingoDogPhotography

Bellmeadow, a member of Deep Green Resistance Colorado, reports on the planned construction of the newest biggest mall in the US. The mall in Castle Rock, CO will destroy the home of one of the largest remnant prairie dog colonies on Colorado’s Front Range. Already reduced to 3% of their native range and less than 1% of their original population, prairie dogs would be considered an endangered species if not for the loophole of calling them “pests.”

Recently I heard news that our county (Douglas) was getting one of the nation’s biggest malls. The news simultaneously sunk my heart and angered me. Why the hell do we need another mall? To consume the world? Then my mind raced to the location of the mall, and the prairie dogs that live there. I had been worried about this colony before, about the strong possibility that the remaining colonies comprising hundreds of prairie dogs would be destroyed for some kind of development. After all, a Lowe’s store, an outlet mall, a housing project, and a tire store had occupied their territory and had already killed thousands of these dogs in the name of “development.” And this was the final solution for the 3,000 to 8,000 remaining burrows: complete annihilation of the prairie dogs for a shopping mall set to cover 170 acres in concrete.

Regular readers of this blog or listeners of Derrick Jensen’s Resistance Radio may remember his interview with Con Slobodchikoff on prairie dog language, in which they discussed their high level of intelligence. Sacrificing these beings for short term profit and another shopping mall should be criminal.

Unfortunately, as we know all too well, money and those who wield it write the laws. There’s probably no chance of saving the habitat for the colony under threat; the best-case scenario is “relocation”, a horrible process of sucking the dogs out of their homes, killing many and splitting up families in the process, and moving them to strange new territory where they may or may not survive. Even implementing this salvaging rescue mission will prove difficult, as few landowners are willing to accept the forced transplants, and if a location can be found, it’ll be another struggle to convince the developer to hold off on construction three months so the prairie dogs can be moved at the least harmful time of year.

If you care about prairie dogs and the other people crushed by the relentless expansion of civilization, if you feel anger or grief or shame, let that guide you to action. Join Deep Green Resistance and the culture of resistance!