Santa Cruz River
Proposed urban national wildlife refuge in Southern Arizona would celebrate centuries of community resilience
The effort: making permanent the revitalization of a life source
For thousands of years, the Santa Cruz River in Southern Arizona has been a lifeline for people, plants, and animals. It has nurtured one of North America's oldest agrarian communities and supported the Sonoran Desert ecosystem, creating a vibrant oasis amid a dry landscape.
Over time, the river was degraded by population growth, settler diversions, and groundwater overuse. Communities along the river corridor took action and began restoring and healing the Santa Cruz. Thanks to their decades of local advocacy efforts, water is returning to the river, bringing life with it.
To safeguard the river's diverse ecology and indigenous history for future generations, a coalition of over 50 individuals and organizations has introduced a proposal to preserve almost 20 miles of the river corridor as the Santa Cruz River Urban National Wildlife Refuge.
Throughout the Southwest, we have lost most of our flowing rivers. They are natural refuges from heat, development, and aridity, and can provide not only water but also rich vegetation and safe passage. Recognition of this linear corridor honors the water, people, habitat and wildlife of the Santa Cruz River for our community and enables further protection and restoration of the beautiful mesquite bosques and cottonwood galleries that are our refuge.”
The refuge would honor indigenous stewardship, create a more climate-resilient river corridor, support biodiversity, and provide equitable outdoor access for communities along the river. It would also bolster President Joe Biden's conservation legacy by contributing to the national goal of protecting 30 percent of America's lands and waters by 2030.
Efforts to restore the river's flows have roots in Indigenous stewardship.
In 1990, the San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham Nation supported restoring a portion of the river as part of the Wa:k Hikdan project. In the O’odham language, Wa:k means, “Where the water goes in,” and Hikdan means, “cutting of the earth’s surface.” In 2002, workers began planting native vegetation, including cottonwood, willow, and mesquite. For the following decade, the vegetation was fed by Colorado River water that was delivered annually through the Central Arizona Project (CAP).
As a result of the Wa:k Hikdan project, wildlife and people began returning to the river corridor. Javelina, coyotes, skunks, bobcats, deer, owls, hawks, blue jays, wild turkey, and even spotted mountain lion have been seen since the project, and community members are once again enjoying the natural beauty of the river for recreation.
In 2019, to honor the Santa Cruz River's rich Indigenous history and recreational resources, Congress designated the Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area . This national heritage area is a community-based conservation strategy that recognizes that the people who live in the region are uniquely qualified to preserve its resources. The designation serves as an appreciation of the Santa Cruz River's culture, history, languages, and traditions.
The proposal has support from numerous stakeholders
The Santa Cruz River Urban National Wildlife Refuge would reconcile wildlife habitat and outdoor access along the river in Pima County and Santa Cruz County. In April 2024, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in support of this two-county proposal. Then in June, the San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham Nation also passed a resolution in support of the refuge, noting the Tribe's continued use of the river for cultural and religious practices. Both resolutions call on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to designate the Santa Cruz River Urban National Wildlife Refuge.
The opportunity to work with local stewards of the landscape is unprecedented—13 of the 17 flowing miles in Santa Cruz County reside on the privately-owned Baca Float No. 3 property. This vitally important property includes the flowing river as well as centuries-old game trails through canyon and mountain habitat, providing east-to-west connectivity for endangered jaguars. Understanding the importance of this effort, the landowners are anxious to protect the river corridor. They are now offering a sale to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as an alternative to development.
With increasingly robust support, the Santa Cruz River Refuge coalition built the 2024 Landscape Conservation Design (LCD) report , which draws on other key reports, essays, photos, poems, and research to sketch a bi-county vision for this refuge. The vision and research presented in this report are the result of decades of work.
In the last two years alone, the refuge coalition has formed through dozens of one-on-one interviews, in-person workshops, visioning sessions, surveys, petitions, newsletters, and more.
In a sign-on letter finalized in May, members of the coalition urged Secretary Haaland and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams to designate the Santa Cruz River Urban National Wildlife Refuge. The letter describes how the urban refuge would establish an archipelago of protected properties along the Santa Cruz River that would offer permanent wildlife habitat, outdoor access, and ecotourism. The land in the urban core would anchor this “string of pearls,” offering shade, river access, and outdoor education for the neighboring communities.
Beyond providing wildlife connectivity, the Santa Cruz River Urban National Wildlife Refuge would honor Indigenous history.
The Santa Cruz River stretches over 200 miles, first starting in Arizona's San Rafael Valley, completing a 25-mile U-turn in Mexico, and making its way north past Tucson. It's the only river to cross the U.S.-Mexico border twice.
The Santa Cruz River flows through the land and territories of Indigenous peoples. Today, Arizona is home to 22 federally recognized tribes, with the Santa Cruz River watershed being home to the O’odham and the Yaqui, whose relationships with the land and river continue to this day.
The San Xavier District of the Tohono O’odham Nation have ancestral ties to the flowing Santa Cruz River and the lands around it. The original homeland of the Tohono O’odham Nation is located near what is now downtown Tucson on the river, which the people of the Nation have stewarded for millennia. They continue to access these lands for ongoing cultural and religious practices.
Thousands of years later, members of the Tohono O'odham Nation continue to live along the riparian corridor, making it one of North America's oldest continually inhabited agrarian communities.
The urban national wildlife refuge would provide equitable outdoor access.
Almost 100,000 people—83 percent of whom are people of color—live along the Santa Cruz River in the City's Ward 1, the core of the proposed refuge. The region encompasses rich Latinx, Chicanx, Mexican, Native American, Asian, and Black neighborhoods, along with a diverse array of family-owned legacy businesses.
Not only would the urban national wildlife refuge provide outdoor access to communities where greenspace is scarce, but it would also contribute to the Biden administration's Justice40 initiative , a goal to ensure that 40 percent of federal investments in conservation and clean energy are going toward communities marginalized by pollution and inadequate access to clean water and open spaces.
My great hope is for a really significant cultural shift and that through education and through spending more time outdoors, the next generations will have some of the same kind of appreciation for the native vegetation, the native wildlife, the native water systems, and that they will in their daily lives be more respectful of all of those different factors.
The flowing river represents a true comeback story, and local community members are the heroes.
Over the course of 100 years, the once-lush riparian corridor of the Santa Cruz River dried up and became severely polluted. This came as a result of groundwater pumping and a rapidly growing urban population. But in recent years, community leaders have worked diligently to restore the once-flowing river.
In 2014, Pima County began discharging highly treated wastewater into the Santa Cruz River to bring back surface flows.
Local leaders, alongside restoration volunteers, have created over 17 miles of vibrant habitat that has been foundational to the recovery of native vegetation, wildlife, insects, reptiles, fish, and migratory birds.
"The birds that come to Southern Arizona are fabulous and not found anywhere else. It's a million dollar industry. People come from all over the country to add to their life lists by seeing the birds in Tucson, and other places along the Santa Cruz River are typical stops for birders."
Despite increasing biodiversity in the river as a result of restoration efforts over the past decade, climate change and water scarcity threaten the clean, flowing water long-term.
In 2024, the Santa Cruz River was named one of America's Most Endangered Rivers by American Rivers due to the threats of climate change and water scarcity.
On top of this, rollbacks to clean water protections at the federal level could add new challenges to the health of the watershed long-term.
Further revitalizing the river corridor as the Santa Cruz River Urban National Wildlife Refuge would ensure that the life-sustaining river remains healthy for future generations.
It would also add to President Biden's historic conservation record by getting the country one step closer to reaching the national 30x30 goal .
There has never been a better time to recognize this area as an urban national wildlife refuge.
For generations, the Santa Cruz River has provided life for people, plants, and wildlife, all of whom have fought to miraculously revitalize the historic river. But given the threats of drought caused by human-driven climate change and increasing demand for water in the Southwest, the river needs greater protection.
Thankfully, the locally-led effort to recognize the Santa Cruz River as an urban national wildlife refuge has diverse support from community members, Indigenous owners of the land, business leaders, and elected officials. The 50+ member grassroots coalition is growing every day.
Now is the time for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate the Santa Cruz River as an urban national wildlife refuge to honor Indigenous leadership, safeguard endangered wildlife, protect valuable water resources, and ensure equitable outdoor access for future generations.
