Sky Island Borderlands Conservation Program

Like Zach, I was initially signed up to go to Mongolia with Round River and only ended up going to the Sky Islands because of Covid. I won't lie, I was apprehensive at first about living in Arizona in the summer and a little disappointed to be studying "abroad" in the US instead of Mongolia. Luckily, it turned out to be one of the most special summers of my life and I'm so glad I chose to go! The image I had in my head of Arizona was a SpongeBobesque wasteland; instead, it was an incredibly beautiful and diverse patchwork of mountains, valleys, and streams. Each Sky Island mountain range that we worked in was covered in Ponderosa forest and the desert valleys in between were like nothing I'd ever seen before. We also got to see everything turn green over the course of the monsoon season from July to August. For academics, we had some readings and homework to do, but most of the work was field-based. We mostly worked with Round River's community partner Sky Island Alliance- the biggest projects were monitoring springs in the mountains, doing riverbank restoration in a canyon, and helping with the US-Mexico border wildlife survey. The border, and its implications for wildlife (and people), is a huge factor in conservation in the Southwest. We talk about socio-ecological systems in my classes at UVM all the time, but there is nothing like actually experiencing and working in that landscape to help you understand the problems faced in this field. It was really cool to get to work with Round River's community partners and know that the research you are doing is solicited by the people who live and work there. A nice part about the Sky Island program specifically is that you get to make connections with people in the conservation world in the US! (I was even able to go back to Arizona this summer to do research with one of the people I met through being on Round River a year before!).

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After getting accepted into the Round River program going to Mongolia, and having it get cancelled twice, I did not know what to think about heading down to Arizona. That being said, I went in knowing that I was going to enjoy it, and it definitely did not dissapoint. I absolutely loved everything about the program. The food that we made never dissapointed, every one of the students on the program quickly became some of the best friends that I have ever had, and we got to sleep out under thousands of stars every night. Even the weather down in Arizona was very nice. When I first decided to go on this program, weather was definitely one of my big concerns. Once we got down there, the weather was a lot better than I was expecting, and I got to experience monsoons for the first time, which was a very exciting experience. With everything considered, I cannot think of anything about the program that I would change, and the six weeks that I spent down in Arizona was without a doubt the best six weeks of my life.

Round River is a unique program because it focuses on real-world conservation work and place-based learning. I hadn't taken any biology before this program, and I learned SO much. Every day I knew more about the desert/mountain ecosystem around me and felt more connected to its complexity and beauty. We partnered with a local conservation organization which was amazing because we were doing relevant conservation work on the border. We also thought a lot about the current immigration humanitarian crisis in the region. This was important to me because it tied together human and environmental issues. My group of 6 student and 2 instructors had a blast backpacking to research springs, and car camping to do vegetation surveys. All around this was an incredible experience and couldn't recommend it more!