Restoring the Pitchfork Ranch

Restoring the Pitchfork Ranch tells the story of a decades-long habitat restoration project in southwestern New Mexico. Ranch-owner A. Thomas Cole explains what inspired him and Lucinda to turn their retirement into years dedicated to hard work and renewal. The book shares the past and present history of a very special ranch south of Silver City, which is home to a rare type of regional wetland, a fragile desert grassland ecosystem battered by an increasingly overheated climate, archaeological sites, and a critical wildlife corridor in a drought-stricken landscape. Solutions to the climate, species extinction, soil and water and companion crises is central.A.T. and Lucinda retired from Arizona to the Pitchfork Ranch in 2004 after practicing law and teaching in Casa Grande for 33-years. Their hope is to restore and protect the ranch’s biologically, properly functioning ciénaga and eventually establish a Ciénaga National Monument.