The last ranch

In the small ranching community of Colorado's San Luis Valley, spread out on the flats between the Sangre de Cristo range and the continental divide, Donnie Whitten and his family are trying to change their world. Faced with the slow desertification of once-prime cattle country, the Whittens and their neighbors are forging a new path in the management of their land, finding alternative and often radical measures to stop the coming desert. As their entire way of life is threatened, they begin to tackle one of the world's most pressing environmental problems. In this absorbing chronicle, Sam Bingham shows the complex interplay between human society and the natural world. He reveals the intricate ecology of a community: from the newly arrived Wall Street couple carving out a life on the Colorado plains to the companies determined to divert the area's most precious resource - water - to cities throughout the West. Among the remarkable characters who influence the Whittens' quest are a holistic ranch-management expert whose perceptions were honed in an African civil war, a mathematical genius who wins a legal case for the ranchers despite overwhelming odds, and Bud Williams, a man who can move a half-wild herd into a corral simply by putting his hands in his pockets and walking toward them.