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 For one environmental
journalist visiting the Sonoran Desert yesterday, it was like
“stepping onto Mars”and it brought reminders of a global
warming catastrophe that could inundate much of the Earth.
John Fialka,
environmental reporter for the Wall Street Journal, experienced his Mars
sensation during a visit to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum by members
of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
The visit also included
a close encounter with a creepy, crawler desert dweller , a charge that
some environmental reporters do not do justice to their beat, and a
contemporary version of an ancient native-American ritual incorporating
Christianity with tribal religion.
Fialka joined an
estimated 200 other members of the society in touring the museum on the
outskirts of Tucson to see at first hand the desert’s sentinel-like
saguaro cactus and other unique vegetation and wildlife, including the
fleet-footed road runner, cactus wren and the porker-like javalina.
“Ever since I got
here, I have been mesmerized by the scenery,” Fialka said in an
interview as the day cooled down a bit from the scorching high 90s.
“It’s like walking on Mars.”
Fialka arrived from his
Washington, D.C., base flush from an environmental beat success. The
Journal had run that day, in its coveted page-one right-hand column, his
story on global warming and the lucrative trade in “pollution
permits“ that has mushroomed to counter the phenomenon.
Fialka said global
warming is the “hottest story“on the environmental beat with
predictions that temperatures will rise significantly in the next
century. Some scientists predict that the polar icecaps will melt with
the increased temperatures and that this could cause oceans to rise,
inundating and obliterating many coastal cities and even entire
countries.
“They are talking
about a major sea level rise in the next century unless we do something
about it now,” he said. “If we can’t do something right
now, we may not be able to do something later because the climate is so
huge it has a kind of inertia. Once it gets into a certain mode,
it’s hard to get out of it.”
Global warming is
thought to be caused by green house gases generated by animals, through
manure, and by humans burning fossil fuels, such as gasoline in their
cars. Green house gases are those emitted gases such as carbon dioxide,
which trap the hot temperatures in the atmosphere. This causes a build
up in the earth’s overall temperatures.
Fialka said that the
challenge in covering the global warming story is that it is a complex
issue, which deals with climate changes. And while meteorologists have
very complex, state of the art equipment the climate and global warming
issues are “poorly understood even by the experts.”
Opened in 1952, the
museum, is non-profit, privately owned and funded. It serves as an
educational institution to increase the public’s awareness of the
Sonoran Desert and the endangered species in this area. It is a
combination of a museum, zoo botanical garden and nature trail all in
one. Yesterday’s events were held in various places on the museum
grounds.
Joel Grossman, an SEJ
member and free-lance writer since 1979, said that some reporters do not
do justice to the environmental story. “They look for cheap sounds
bites, rather than getting into the complicated issues,” he said in
an interview. He said he does not write many environmental pieces
because he finds them difficult to market and sell.
In one of the
performances for the group, Bernaldo Valencia, 68, a Yaqui elder from
Mexico, clutched a drum decorated with colored hand-drawings and a wooden
flute. He sat in the shaded heat while another Yaqui tribal member,
Felipe Molina, from Tucson, described deer songs.
These ceremonial songs
have been passed down through several Yaqui generations. Molina, now in
his mid-thirties, started learning these songs from his
grandfather’s friend when he was five. The deer songs used to be
performed in an all-night vigil before the deer was killed. Today, they
are usually performed during the day or on weekends.
(Photo: Leyla
Knight)
Bernaldo
Valencia, a Yaqui tribal elder and deer singer, plays
the song of the red cardinal at the Arizona-Sonora
Desert Museum. He learned this song from his
father-in-law as a young man. This song is usually
performed on Holy Saturday afternoon during the Easter
ceremony. According to Yoeme traditions all living
things have a special song. |
“The songs are to
honor the deer we are going to kill,” Molina said. “We added
this to our Christian religion. We see the ancient and new coming
together.” However, deers are no longer killed in the ceremonies,
which are now performed to show thanks, or tribute to saints, people, or
anything in the universe, Molina said.
“A family could
request (a deer song ceremony) for having a good year financially or
health wise. It is to pay our respects and give thanks.” The songs
are still performed in the Yoeme language.
Molina, who was involved
in educating the young Yoeme children about deer songs and dances said
that “from our songs and traditions we learn.” While working
with the children, from 1980 to 1990, Molina found them to be very
interested and receptive to learning. He translated all the deer songs
into English so the children could understand them.
SEJ members also had a
taste, so to speak, of a hot, spicy business during the museum visit.
They met with Josefina Duran-Meza, who launched a chili exporting
business in 1968 in Santa Cruz, Arizona. It started out as a suggestion
from her banker, and is now a successful international company. Working
alone and with her then 17-year-old son, she built the company into a
booming business. She still purchases wild Chiltepine chilies from
villagers in the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico and is now selling them
to two companies, one in Texas and the other in California.
Known as the “Queen
of Chiltepines,” Durnan-Meza relies on the villagers during the
harvest season in the months of October, November and December to pick
the chiltepines one chili at a time by hand. It is a tough and risky
business, she said.
“When there is no
rain, there is no crop so no work and no money for that year,” she
said.
(Photo: Leyla Knight)
"Chili Queen" Josefina
Duran-Meza,
with a young chiltepine chili plant. The
chilies usually grow to about 1/4 of an inch
in size. They are rated one of the hottest
chilies in the world. Her 29 year-old
company is the only chiltepine international
exporter in the Cumpas, Sonora area. |
Duran-Meza prefers the
wild chiltepines over commercially grown ones because they are less prone
to diseases. And many commercial crops fail because they lack the many
required elements to successfully grow them.
Duran-Meza’s son
Antonio Heras Duran has been researching new methods to help him grow his
dream chiltepine farm. Chiltepines, which are one of the hottest chilies
are sometimes nicknamed as the “Bird Peppers,” Heras said.
Many birds love the chili even though they can not digest it, he said.
But their stomach acid works on the outer shell of the chili seed and
when the bird extracts the seeds “it is already encircled with
fertilizer (from the birds’ droppings),” he said.
“Usually birds do this on a tree, which allows the chili seeds to
grow in shade which is necessary for a successful crop,” Duran said.
The SEJ members also
learned of the frustrations of tribal elders in keeping tribal traditions
alive among the new generation of native-American youth.
Frances Manual told the
gathering that her grandfather, who died in 1938, predicted that
“kids will be born with no ears.” An oral historian, Manual
has spent the last 17 years trying to revive the Tohono
O’odham’s traditional culture through talks and lessons in
basket weaving.
Unfortunately, says
Manual, her grandfather’s prediction came true.
“Most of the kids I
see have gone too far, they think what they see on TV is real and what we
the elders say is not true,” she said in an interview later.
“They don’t listen.”
With the children living
in a “fantasy world” of television and other pop culture
entertainment, Manual says she finds it very difficult to interest them
in learning.
“When you’re
talking to them, you can see that their minds are way off, most of them
aren’t listening unless you say something funny,” she said.
While SEJ members dined
at the museum under a star-studded sky, an unexpected fuzzy guest made a
noticeable entrance. As a small tarantula wondered among the tables,
several journalists sought refuge by standing on their chairs. The
eight-legged, uninvited guest kept the crowd’s attention as it
climbed onto a rock wall in a corner of the dining area. Gawking
journalists pointed their fingers at the creature and and whispered,
“It’s a tarantula.” Tarantula’s bites can be painful
but are harmless to humans.
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