The Last Ranch: A Colorado Community and the Coming Desert

by Sam Bingham

This powerful book presents an absorbing account of Colorado's San Luis valley, a ranching community, as its residents struggle to preserve its way of life in the face of a profoundly changing environment.

Genres: Nonfiction

363 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written story of a ranching family attempting holistic ranching in the San Louis Valley. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the water law case and fight against AWDI. I also liked the Bingham's portrayal of conflict with environmentalists- particularly at the wildlife refuge where the manager was attempting to manage the land in the best way possible but was sued because of a view that cows can only cause harm. The image of planes and spray replacing cows to manage the refuge because cows were unnatural and introduced was both heartbreaking and education. Overall, a good book for anyone who has an interest in ranching or land management.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Regarding the author’s style, he is a cerebral writer using challenging vocabulary and sometimes I really didn’t understand what he meant. If you enjoy a challenge which I do and the topic of ranch life in the West plus desertification interests you, then go ahead and read this very well written book whose compelling story of many struggling ranchers in southern Colorado is often interrupted by side trips to Africa and other areas where desertification is proving a challenge.

[David Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important and interesting story about the impacts of grazing and agriculture on the land and human communities in an arid part of the Southwest. Unfortunately, Bingham is too glib, snarky, and full of himself, so the book is challenging to read. In addition, it needed to be edited and shortened considerably.

[Stephany Wilkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a meaty book that challenges what we think we know that just ain't so, my favorite kind of nonfiction book. The Last Ranch describes, though stories about patches of land and people, the ways in which grazing benefits soil life, disturbing otherwise drought "sealed" ground to break soil crusts that prevent water from entering, depositing manure with its vital nutrients, and more. This is something I've learned more about and that I've observed firsthand from my past few years of working on California ranches, where the focus is not just on how to increase water content in soil due to our drought conditions but also how to sequester carbon on pasture land via compost (see the Marin Carbon Project for more in this vein). It is something that has surprised me and overturned my world, as it is so different from the anti-grazing messages I swallowed wholesale earlier in life, from the likes of the Sierra Club and Audubon Society. It makes perfect sense but, a few years ago, was new to me and it's something I'm glad I've had the chance to learn.

Bingham's style conveys a sense of mystery and awe, within his science writing. There is much that these practices of pasture management have not explained: they appear to have, for example, the effect of bringing back much desired plants no one has seen in decades, but we don't know the mechanism(s) by which that happened. These observations have a way of reminding us of how much we don't know, even as we learn so much, and Bingham strikes a nice balance with it.

Bingham's observations on humans are as telling as his observations of land: our downfall -- one that may damn us forever in terms of our climate -- is our inability to work together as humans, to pay attention to what's around us and listen to the signs the land and animals give us, and to act on them in time. When we do this, miracles abound; when we don't, it's disaster for the land and thus for us. Without posting any spoilers, I liked the way Bingham summarized this "lesson," metaphorically in a story about herding, in the final chapter.

Because the book was written in the 1990s and it's now 2015, it's hard to know if the ranchers in the book succeeded in stopping desert. An aerial view on Google Maps was the best I could muster to check in, and it shows some beautiful green areas, but I don't know enough to determine if those are the areas the ranchers attempted to save in the book.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know the land where this book is written about. I don't know a lot about ranching, but so far it is interesting premise is keeping my attention. Living with the land rather than off the land.

While this book really caught my interest in the beginning, I could not finish it. The author seams to lose his point and ends up telling many little stories. Maybe he sums it up in the end, but he lost me along the way.