CASE EXAMPLE 2: THE ACOMA SOIL CONSERVATION PROJECT

 

JOHN COLLIER (1945)

 

From. Grundy, S. Beyond Professionalism: Action Research as Critical Pedagogy Vol. 2 pp. 179-480 (PhD thesis, 1985)

 

In 1933 Acoma had about a thousand people, and its numbers were, growing. Irrigation fanning could not be much extended. The cash crop and main sustenance was cattle and sheep, but the government had encouraged maximum livestock numbers, and Acoma's lands were seriously eroded, the erosion accelerating each year. In its wounded condition the range would support 8,500 sheet units without being further wrecked. The sheep units on the land numbered 33,000. What could be done? Conservation had been mandatory upon Indian lands, under the Indian reorganization act. But we did not call attention to this fact of Law. We knew that the exigency must be met, if it could be met at all, by methods having nothing to do with compulsion.

 

The Soil Conservation service had ascertained the facts. The responsibility of finding the answer fell upon the superintendent of the United Pueblos Agency. That superintendent, I may mention, was a woman. In 1936 invited the officers of Acoma, and in time, the whole population into conferences with her staff and the Soil Conservation staff. There the appalling fact was told to them, that if their lands were to survive they must reduce from 33,000 to 8,500 sheep units. This was no command from the government. There was no command, and there would be none. Acoma was merely being furnished with the facts, and it would also be furnished technical assistance, if desired. The conferences lasted through days, weeks, months. Gradually they broadened and deepened, and passed from point to point, until much of what was known about soil saving was known by the Acomas. The whole deep, living past of Acoma, and the vision of the ages to come and of the land to be saved for those ages, slowly absorbed the new facts and adopted their challenge. The thing was done. Acoma effected the crushing reduction, went through with all the sacrifices, applied conservation science through its whole gamut. And Acoma saw the ranges begin to heal, saw the weight and fleece of the residual animals increase, saw their sales prices soar through collective marketing. (1945, pp. 282-284).