WATER HAS MEMORY

The Return Of a Lost Desert Oasis

Burro Ciénaga

Water’s memory runs deep in the valleys of the Chihuahuan Desert—places once lush with spring-fed wetlands, alive with birds, bears, and beaver. A desert wetland now feels like a contradiction as today, those oases are dry and silent. This change began with European colonization and worsened through Western expansion. The new arrivals overgrazed, diverted water, and drained the marshes. As a result, 91% of these wetlands have vanished.

Part of the challenge in recognizing this loss lies in what scientists call a shifting baseline where each generation accepts the degraded state of the environment they inherit as normal, unaware of what existed before. This limits our ability to grasp the full scale of ecological decline diminishing our sense of urgency to protect and repair. Yet with our help the natural world has an untapped capacity to heal.

Three years ago, I met a couple who discovered a nearly extinct ciénaga—a desert wetland unique to the Southwest—on their newly purchased ranch. Over two decades, they restored much of what was lost, undoing more than a century of human-caused harm. They documented the process with same-location photographs, capturing the land’s transformation. Inspired, I began blending their earliest images with my own to visualize this story of damage and recovery.

Water holds memory with support and care will endure.