7 December 2022: A storm is imminent as I walk in weather warm for early December. Dark clouds are building to the southwest, and as I watch they sweep northeast and mushroom over the southern slopes of the San Juan Mountains. These rugged mountains have captured my imagination even before we moved here at their southern fringe 25 years ago. While forecasting weather in Nevada earlier in my life, I kept seeing the San Juans excel in capturing whatever winter moisture that the Sierras let go by—an island of rich forest that I envisioned but had never seen.
These mountains have become my landscape focus, my refuge of sorts, over the past quarter century, and we now get to enjoy firsthand those winter storms as well as the dramatic summer thunderstorms. With the San Juan’s impressive elevations, winter can still find a refuge even as the climate warms. I scan the horizon and dream of the time when grizzlies last roamed the mountains just to our east, to where lynx have been reintroduced to our north and east, and where abundant prime habitat still exists for wolves if they decide to move in or if we help them. Refuges past, present, and future—for climate, man, and beast.
Deep Sustainability: I have been writing some bits and pieces over the past 10 years—basically thinking out loud about how we need to get busy in our pursuit of sustainability—seeking deeper sustainability and responding to the urgency of our situation. I begin by posing “Three Questions”—Are we doing enough? Are we doing it fast enough? Why do we do this work? My attempts at answering these questions can be found in the “Getting Serious Now” posts on my website. At this point, I am working to apply these ideas to our own backyard, and they are much of what I suggest we think about—or rather dream about—for the mountains and surrounding lowlands of the greater San Juan Mountain region.
Why Dream? There are so many ways to think about a better future. Most planning processes ask us to envision our preferred future—for ourselves, our community, or for an organization. While we may be asked to think in both long and short terms, the emphasis is usually on the short—three to five years at most. This is very practical, but rarely allows us to escape the current realities of the present—simple things like keeping a job, paying bills, keeping the family farm or business viable, being able to retire comfortably, or helping one’s kids with college or with them getting a rewarding job. Long-term visioning of maybe 25-50 or more years ahead might better be called dreaming—letting go of immediate concerns and envisioning a better world for our great grandchildren and beyond.
But how is long-term dreaming responsive to the urgent issues facing us? Rather than an idle exercise, starting with the long term can pave the way for more enlightened planning for the short term. Instead of feeling trapped by the momentum of the status quo, we can more readily move “out of the box” toward a more desirable future. Only a bold, compelling, yet plausible dream of what is possible can drive us to work toward it despite the pressures of the moment. A daring but responsive dream of the future is needed to help us question the assumptions that hold the status quo in place—by accepting the position that endless growth, consumerism, technological cleverness, and markets free of responsibility and compassion will solve our problems. That it is possible to move past such mindsets is a necessary conviction and a dream in itself. Further, E.O. Wilson, in saying that “Great dreams, as opposed to fantasies, are those that seem to lie at or just beyond the edge of possibility” (Wild Earth intro, Spring 2000) hints at the need to push the envelope of possibility to create dreams worthy of our future—truly dreaming Wild Ideas.
Why Food and Foodsheds? Having worked on sustainable agriculture, local food, and healthy foodsheds for over 35 years here in Colorado, I have found that food and foodsheds offer a useful lens for viewing our relationships with other people, the land, and the planet. Such a view offers a powerful tool for striving for greater sustainability and for ecological integrity for the land—a tool in the hands of everyone who grows food, votes or advocates for leaders and policies, and anyone who chooses what to eat three times a day. It is only one of several ways to approach these issues, but I am convinced that it is one of the most powerful, accessible, and nurturing ways to do so. Having such a powerful tool accessible to everyone, coupled with my belief that as people become more aware, they often tend to become more loving and responsible, there is the good possibility, but not the certainty, of us becoming a much more compassionate and responsible society. A worthy dream to work toward even though it may seem to be on the edge of possibility.
The foodsheds lens makes food systems much more tangible for most people and forces us to consider the impacts on the land. I consider the local foodshed as 1) the land that we should look to first, but not exclusively, for our food, and 2) that land that we should feel most responsible for. Since our farms, gardens, and ranches are so intimately interdependent on surrounding ecosystems, I find it most practical and effective to consider those surrounding lands—the whole landscape—as part of our foodshed. Since the San Juan Mountains can be considered the hydrologic, meteorologic, ecologic, and aesthetic anchor for our region, the mosaic of overlapping local foodsheds in Southwest Colorado making up our regional foodshed is what I dream of being considered the “Greater San Juan Mountain Ecosystem”—and being treated as such. It would be a giant leap toward finding our appropriate place as a species in this beautiful, rich, and still rather wild region.
What if? There are many lenses other than food and foodsheds that can be used to dream of a better future here—water, energy, climate and biodiversity, land use, economic development, to name a few—although food will inevitably lead to these others as well. Here are just a few examples of dreams I have and hope to get a chance to pursue further:
Food—What if we developed the habit of looking first to our local and regional foodsheds for the food we need, considered the impact of our food footprint around the world, and greatly strengthened our local growers’ ability to grow food for us?
Water—What if we learned from, mimicked, and enlisted the aid of beavers in our water management?
Land Use—What if we considered the Greater San Juan Mountain region first and foremost as a beautiful and rich ecosystem whose wild character must be protected and restored—first for its own sake—and to benefit residents, tourists, our economy, and our grandchildren’s future?
Economic Development—What if we saw the development of a delicious, sustainable, healthy, unique, locally based cuisine as a core economic development strategy for our tourism-based mountain towns that would also provide food security and abundance for local full-time residents with the aid of those tourist revenues?
Climate, Energy, & Biodiversity—What if we saw our food choices—personal as well as policy choices that prioritize local and sustainable foods—as a powerful tool to address the climate and biodiversity crises as well as food security, health, and economic development?
The Path Ahead: This work combines my belief in using food for good and my passion for protecting, restoring, and enjoying the San Juan Mountains and surrounding lowlands. I am looking forward to exploring these dreams further, hearing from others about their dreams along this line, and remain convinced that such dreaming is a key to developing the insights, innovation, and passion needed to pursue deeper sustainability in our region—and to find our appropriate place in this landscape we call home.
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