by Peggy High '55
Brought up on the East Coast, Valer Clark Austin ’58 never thought that she would be a philanthropist and environmentalist striving to make “this Earth a better place” in an ecologically fragile area of the Southwest.
In her Chapin days, her interest was art. “I was always fascinated by the manner in which different artists applied paint to canvas,” she recalled. “What would it be like to be strapped to a mast like Turner, interpreting a storm with a paintbrush, or ensconced in a field in southern France, like the Impressionists, changing sunlight into colors?”
It was in search of great places to paint that she moved west.
Valer and her husband, Josiah, loved the Southwest so much that they decided to stay. In the early 1980s, they bought El Coronado Ranch in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona, near the Mexican border and in a natural corridor for wildlife. The ranch became their permanent home and the beauty and biodiversity of its setting the focus of their vision for a better world.
Their work to preserve the environment began, quite literally, in their own backyard. “We ended up planting trees, stopping soil erosion by building small rock dams in the washes to slow down the fall of water that can do so much damage during the monsoons,” Valer said. “Many years and 20,000 rock dams later, we had restored a stream.”
Scientists began to visit the ranch to study the fish, birds and abundant vegetation on the Austins’ property. The relationship was symbiotic, Valer said, as “The scientists taught us much.” And what began at home evolved into a far larger commitment to the natural world.
Over the past 25 years, the Austins have acquired more land in southern Arizona and northern Mexico and have established a foundation, Cuenca de Los Ojos — which translates to “Watershed of the Springs” — with the mission of preserving the borderland region “through land protection, habitat restoration and wildlife reintroduction.”
The foundation is aptly named. The harvesting of water lies at the heart of the Austins’ prodigious efforts to sustain the “intricate web of life” in their desert landscape. They made a film about the rock dams they have created and the wetland in the San Bernardino Valley they have restored; it vividly depicts the greening of formerly parched valleys under water’s beneficent influence. They have also seeded the Arizona soil with native grasses that are critical to maintaining passageways for many migrating animals and birds, such as the white-tailed deer and two of Valer’s favorites: the endangered “charismatic” jaguar and the thick-billed parrot.
The global significance of the Austins’ endeavors has not gone unrecognized; the couple has received awards from national and international organizations. It may have been painting that led Valer to the American West, but her life experience has clearly shifted her priorities, both in terms of her own pursuits and her philanthropy.
“The world will survive without another sculpture, another painting or new wing of a museum, but life on Earth depends upon our repair of watersheds,” she said, speaking recently to a group of fellow philanthropists in San Francisco. “The planet is not growing, yet we continue to grow. We cannot step off this planet and go to another Earth.”