Listening to the Gila River 

In New Mexico, we put our rivers to work. We treat them as conveyance channels for waters we want to use, and to dilute pollution we don’t want. Over the last few hundred years in the United States, this mindset has dominated our society. Rarely do we remember that rivers are their own creatures. And as living beings themselves, they have something to teach us.
With funding from The Water Desk, a journalism initiative at the University of Colorado Boulder's Center for Environmental Journalism, the Our Land crew went to the Gila River this summer, to visit the river, including a stretch that would have been changed forever if New Mexico had moved forward on a controversial diversion.
In this special Our Land segment, we consider what lessons the Upper Gila River holds for the future-and the rest of the Colorado River Basin. Featuring Martha Cooper (Freshwater Director of The Nature Conservancy in New Mexico) and Joe Saenz, Chihe´ne (Warm Springs Apache).
Senior Producer
Laura Paskus
Director/Editor
Antony Lostetter
Camera
Antony Lostetter
Benjamin Yazza
Music
Marie - Reverence
Marie - River Runner
Steven Keech - Cavern
Featherland - Winter Train Home
Caleb Etheridge - Halcyon Days