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Destruction of an Ancient Indigenous Cultural Landscape: An Epitaph from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION 21:4 n DECEMBER 2003 Ecological Restoration, Vol. 21, No. 4, 2003 ISSN 1522-4740 E-ISSN 1543-4079 ©2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Given that an enormous proportion of all North American wetland habitats have become seriously degraded and in need of restoration, it may be worth determining where historic indigenous stewardship practices have demonstrated the means of managing spring-fed wetlands without diminishing the biodiversity associated with them (Nabhan 1982, Nabhan and Noriego in press). A comparative inquiry into cultural traditions of springfed wetlands protection, restoration, and use may reveal options for managing these habitats—ones that conservation biologists working in National Parks might not otherwise recognize. One such opportunity to compare various approaches to the habitat management and restoration of spring-fed wetlands has emerged out of a series of three decade-long studies focused on the desert oases of Quitovac and Quitobaquito in the Sonoran Desert (Figure 1) (Nabhan and others 1982, Mellink 1985, Felger and others 1992, Reichhardt and others 1994, Nabhan and Noriego in press). These studies reveal that in the late 20th century, the National Park Service attempted to plant native species and remove exotics to ecologically restore the desert oasis at Quitobaquito in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument—a site that had been constructed and managed as an indigenous cultural landscape for centuries. Furthermore, the National Park Service’s ill-advised “cultural cleansing” of O’odham culture from Quitobaquito resulted in the loss of both biological and cultural resources (Nabhan 1982). Since springs were probably among the first places that desert hunter-gatherers wished to settle, and given that the water, plants, and wildlife there were essential to their subsistence (Nabhan and others 1989), it should not surprise conservation biologists or ecological restorationists that desert springs, such as Quitovac and Quitobaquito, are not “pristine” but have been managed through indigenous practices for millennia. Given this evidence, the dilemma for land managers becomes how to manage or restore springs and their biota to both sustain natural and cultural diversity, not simply how to protect them from any and all cultural influences. The purpose of this article is to encourage the National Park Service and other government agencies to consult with tribes, archaeologists, ethnobiologists, and ethnohistorians before attempting to ecologically restore habitat complexes that have been shaped by indigenous cultural practices. Federal laws, such as the American Antiquities Act and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, not only protect prehistoric artifacts and ceremonial Destruction of an Ancient Indigenous Cultural Landscape: An Epitaph from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument