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Cascabel, Arizona – May 15, 2015. The Cascabel Conservation Association is pleased to announce the appointment of Scott Wilbor as Conservation Director, the CCA’s first full-time employee. Wilbor will be responsible for funding and expanding CCA programs, with a focus on conservation and traditional land use in the lower San Pedro Valley. As part of these efforts, he will coordinate with local landowners, ranchers and farmers; federal, state and county agencies; non-governmental organizations (NGOs); local communities; corporate interests; and conservationists. He will also continue to serve on the board of the Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance, formed in 2012 to unite valley landowners and conservation-minded individuals to protect the lower valley.
As Wilbor says, “This is my passion…community-based collaborative conservation applying ecosystem conservation management principles and science in the San Pedro watershed.” He will be working with CCA members to develop new outreach materials and expand programs to increase appreciation and conservation opportunities for the lower San Pedro Valley. Past president and co-founder Mary Lou Gonzales put it succinctly, “If our organization is going to grow, we need an executive. We are not going to live forever. We have needed a person like this for many years.”
Wilbor is a 2014 graduate of the University of Arizona’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment, completing his M.S. on “An ecosystem conservation assessment of the lower San Pedro watershed in Arizona” and gaining certification in Geographical Information Science (GIS). He also holds an M.S. in Wildlife Biology from the University of Alaska and a B.S. in Wildlife Biology from Colorado State University.
Wilbor has been active in southern Arizona conservation for nearly 15 years, serving as a conservation biologist with the Tucson Audubon Society from 2000–2011. There he established and ran the National Audubon Society’s Important Bird Area (IBA) program for Arizona and obtained Global IBA status for the lower San Pedro River. He also developed conservation plans for the upper Santa Cruz River and Sonoita Creek State Natural Area and has worked in the lower San Pedro Valley with Natural Resource Conservation Districts, corporate and federal agency resource holders, and The Nature Conservancy. He has held various positions as a wildlife biologist since the late 1980s.
The Cascabel Conservation Association was founded in 1996 as the Cascabel Hermitage Association to protect land in the Hot Springs Canyon corridor after a militia group attempted to acquire it for a firing range. Through a generous donation from Francis Leitner, the group purchased 440 acres of desert upland and developed public facilities for solitary sojourns in desert wildlands. The CCA was formed in close association the Saguaro-Juniper Corporation, a Cascabel ranching-conservation group. Jim Corbett, a leader of the Sanctuary Movement and mentor to the Malpai Borderlands Group, was instrumental in creating both organizations.
Together, the two hold more than 1600 deeded acres in the Hot Springs corridor in conjunction with ~7500 acres of State Trust Land grazing leases. These holdings protect the area between the Muleshoe Ranch Cooperative Management Area to the east and the Bureau of Land Management’s Cascabel conservation area on the San Pedro River to the west. The CCA has worked with The Nature Conservancy and the Bureau of Land Management to establish more than 1800 acres of conservation easements in the corridor. The CCA also holds education workshops and local field trips, hosts the Cascabel community garden and annual mesquite milling, and co-owns and oversees one of the largest Sobaipuri village sites on the San Pedro River. The CCA is a member of the Land Trust Alliance and the Arizona Land Trust Network.
Scott can be reached at scottw@cascabelconservation.org, (520) 977-0800.
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