Big Bend National Park: Mexico, the United States, and a Borderland Ecosystem. By Michael Welsh

Abstract

Formed by one river and an already humongous 800,000 acre park, part of the rugged ecosystem spread across two countries with their shifting priorities and fluctuating relationships in a remote and arid landscape, the greater Big Bend area, long dreamt for united recognition and management. We write this review as longtime NPS employees, one a historian, and the other a landscape architect who acquired park knowledge as he worked on Sierra Club service trips for eighteen years, removing fences and planting vegetation to counter overgrazing. Each chapter details different eras and the vacillating prospects for a truly binational park in Michael Welsh’s traditional political history based on his several administrative histories. We recommend this book for people interested in the complexities of park management who are already acquainted with this park and for people interested in the many-decade efforts to establish a binational park/protected area over the larger area bisected by the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo.