Saguaro-Juniper, a land covenant in Arizona

Saguaro-Juniper is a group of over 60 associates holding both deeded and leased land from the state in SE Arizona. The Covenant Preamble reads: “In acquiring private governance, we agree to cherish its earth, waters, plants and animals in a way that promotes the health, stability, and diversity of the whole community.” Several associates were Quakers involved in the Sanctuary Movement, which smuggled refugees into the United States during the 1980s US-backed wars in Central America. Many had worked together for years on environmental and social justice causes; some were cattle raisers. In 1986 they bought $1500 shares in the Saguaro-Juniper ranch corporation, and signed the Covenant that converts ownership to earthcare:

1. The land has a right to be free of human activity that accelerates erosion.
2. Native plants and animals on the land have a right to life with a minimum of human disturbance.
3. The land has a right to evolve its own character from its own elements without scarring from construction or the importation of foreign objects dominating the scene.
4. The land has a pre-eminent right to the preservation of its unique and rare constituents and features.
5. The land, its water, rocks and minerals, its plants and animals, and their fruits and harvest have a right never to be rented, sold, extracted, or exported as mere commodities.

The Cascabel Hermitage Association and the Saguaro-Juniper associates follow the Covenant by active interventions such as careful herding of cattle to prevent overgrazing and building check-dams in the upper washes to prevent erosion. Native vegetation has recovered so well that the community is now studying whether or not to do controlled burns on the upper parts of the land in order to prevent a future lightning strike from starting a wildfire that could kill stands of magnificent, slow-growing saguaros. The careful practices of the Saguaro-Juniper members who herd cattle on the land have enabled denser vegetation to grow in the main wash of the canyon. This vegetation slows flash floods, reducing erosion and trapping sediments and nutrients that further enhance the plant and animal habitat. Refraining from anything more than minimal interference with the land has been the most significant practice of these followers of the Covenant. See also their defence of San Pedro Valley wildlife against a proposed highway.
The book Sanctuary for All Life (Howling Dog Press, Box 853 Berthoud CO 80513-0853) by S-J philosopher-hermit Jim Corbett is a long meditation on the ancient Hebrews as a cimarron people -- those who live in the wild, rejecting slavery. In his view, theirs was a sabbatical way of life -- one lived in harmony with nature, interfering only minimally in the natural order, honoring the sacredness of all life. Fusing dry desert humour and Quaker queries with Jewish mitzvot, he raises fundamental questions of ecology.

In our time, he says, "It is as difficult to imagine a civilized humanity that is no longer exiled from Nature, as it is to imagine a civilization that ceases to enslave life on earth." Torah -- "law, guidance, instruction, way-of-life wisdom" -- must be lived through "participation in a base community that seeks to learn and walk the hallowing way." In this he echoes native spirituality:

With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty below me, may I walk.
With beauty all around me, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty. (excerpt from the Navaho Blessing Way)