Hózhó: Restoring Land, Community and Culture
24 July 2015

“Hózhó″ is a Navajo word that means “walking in beauty” – or living in a manner that strives to create and maintain balance, harmony, beauty and order. Hózhó is similar to, but much richer in meaning than the term “conservation” as it implies a deep connection between people and land. One cannot restore land health without people and culture. This concept forms the founding principal for understanding ecological and cultural resilience on Navajo land, and the work of the Ojo Encino Chapter of the Navajo Nation over the last decade.

The Ojo Encino Chapter of the Navajo Nation sits on the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau, 30 miles due west of Cuba, New Mexico. The restoration program at Ojo Encino is focused on building upon the traditional resilience strategies of the Navajo people. We aim to restore hózhó by:

> Restoring land health and cultural health
> Maintaining traditions by reconnecting people to land
> Creating new land and water management norms
> Feeding the community
> Re-engaging youth

In essence, hózhó is about rediscovering a land ethic, and it requires building local capacity and strategies that make land based activities economically viable and resilient.

The challenges facing this community, and many others in Indian Country, are daunting. First and foremost, is poverty. Many live without running water or electricity, and subsist on commodity food provided by the federal government that is causing obesity, diabetes and ultimately death. Healing the social, economic and political issues that plague this community will be a necessary component of restoring hózhó. As one elder recently said, “we have known imbalance for so long, harmony feels unnatural.”

The second daunting challenge to restoring hózhó is that people no longer depend on the local land base for sustenance. While it is certainly not our goal that the community of Ojo Encino return to a subsistence agricultural economy, there are cultural practices associated with agriculture that clearly sustain the health of the community and the health of the landscape. When land provides something that you NEED – it is natural that you would want to take good care of it! As a society, we have moved towards an increasingly cash based economy, and thus we see the land as cash – instead of as a resource from which we should only harvest what we need. As a result we have entered a vicious cycle of increasing pressure on land, which ultimately leads to land degradation. In a fragile landscape like Ojo Encino, this degradation is particularly pronounced.

The third challenge is getting young people involved, and demonstrating that there is meaningful work to be done in the community. One elder captured the challenge perfectly with the statement, “Our youth no longer see the land, they just see the road out of here.” There are few opportunities for youth to make a good living on the reservation, and a crucial element of restoring hózhó will be re-engaging the imaginations and creativity of the next generation of land stewards.

The final challenge is resistance to change. Old habits die hard, especially when the change doesn’t always fit in well with the “more, better, faster” American dream. Hózhó requires that we take our time, find beauty and meaning in what we do, and ultimately create harmony in the world around us.

Restoring hózhó

With support and help from the Ojo Encino Rancher’s Committee, the Rio Puerco Alliance, the Quivira Coalition, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Christensen Fund, the Packard Foundation, and numerous volunteers, the Ojo Encino community is systematically chipping away at these challenges, and making real change on the ground. The Ojo Encino Ranchers Committee has hosted a number of community events including a Native Foods Day, several grazing management workshops, road drainage and erosion control workshops, and two Horse Expos.

All of these programs have served an essential role in helping to restorehózhó, but two in particular have been very successful:

Feral Horse Management: Although it is easy to focus a lot of attention on managing livestock grazing, the real conservation challenge on Native lands is in managing feral horses. Driving across the Navajo reservation, small groups of feral horses are a frequent sight on the landscape. While romantic at first glance, the darker side of this picture is that these unmanaged herds are overgrazing open range and undermining efforts to restore rangelands to a healthy condition.

RC Gorman

In many cases, these horses have no training, provide little economic value to Chapter members or their owners, and often die of starvation or injury. When herd populations grow to unmanageable levels, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) reduce numbers through roundups and auctions. This management strategy is very stressful for the horses, and doesn’t ultimately address the root causes of the feral horse over-population issue. This scenario is repeated again and again throughout the Southwest.

At Ojo Encino, we are taking a proactive and culturally appropriate approach to managing the feral horse problem. The Feral Horse Youth Program teaches tribal youth about the art and science of horsemanship, horse health management, and grazing management. In combination with a horse training program, we are working to create a more positive and interactive relationship between horses and people, as well as adding value to the horses, themselves.

In addition to improving the relationship between people and horse, we are also working to improve the health of the horse population. In 2009, Ojo Encino became the first Navajo Chapter certified to administer the immunocontraceptive PZP, which prevents mares from becoming pregnant for up to 22 months. Fewer pregnancies mean that mares remain healthier, and are more valuable to their owners. Through two community Horse Expos, over 50 mares have been immunized with PZP and 25 stallions gelded. The goal is to stabilize the population at around 350 horses, a number the Ojo Encino Ranchers Committee believes is sustainable.

Historic Flood Water Garden Restoration:

Historic agricultural sites represent areas of high ecological and cultural significance a landscape that is otherwise largely degraded. We have relied on the elders in the community to help identify these historic sites because most of the young people in the area were raised on commodity processed foods, and can’t remember a time when their community grew its own food and fed itself. These sites were sacred not only for the food they produced, but also for the diversity of medicinal plants that grew in the nutrient rich soils.

Community members are now coming forward with an interest in these old fields, not only as a means to feed their families “real” food, but also for their value as building blocks in a re-emerging local food system. Last spring the community of Ojo Encino held its first Native Foods Day where they gave away seeds hoping to promote home gardens and small scale local agriculture.

The Summer Youth Work Program aims to engage the Navajo youth by providing a training program in erosion control and dryland restoration. This summer, the Navajo youth crew are devoting some of their time to erosion control projects at these historic flood water gardens.

Looking Forward

There is much to be optimistic about! Green grass is now growing in places where we could only find bare ground a few years ago. There is a new Navajo-run non-profit called Hasbidito that is giving the community the ability to develop their own capacity, administer their own programs, and envision a bright future for their children. At Ojo Encino rancher committee meetings, members talk about healthy food, healthy livestock and healthy land. Youth show up in the summer to haul rocks to erosion sites. The feral horse population is being managed in a responsible and respectful manner. Gardens are feeding families. And when grazing experts come to talk about the need for grazing management plans, Ojo Encino ranchers proudly open their binders, show off their plans and explain what they are doing to implement them. Each of these small steps is beauty. Change comes slowly. It took decades to unravel a way of life that had persisted on this land for centuries. It will likely take an equal amount of time to rebuild it anew. There is no guide book. Each small step is a major victory, and a step closer to what is right, to hózhó, Walking in Beauty.

For more information on Ojo Encino, or for ideas on how you can support this important work, please contact Avery Anderson at avery@quiviracoalition.org

This article was adapted from an article originally published in The Quivira Coalition’s Journal No. 35. Tammy Herrera is a resident of Ojo Encino and runs the Ojo Encino Horse Management Program Craig Conley, PhD, teaches natural resource management at New Mexico Highlands University. Avery Anderson is the Capacity Building and Mentorship Program Director for The Quivira Coalition.

For more reading on Hozho and some of the Navaho values I have found a couple other insightful articles: https://www.amizade.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/LifeComesFromIt.doc AND this one: http://www.iirp.edu/article_detail.php?article_id=NDA1

And there are numerous books, including those written by Tony Hillerman

All art here was created by, Rudolph Carl (RC) Gorman was a Native American artist of the Navajo Nation.

Web Source: greenfiretimes.com/2010/08/hozho-restoring-land-community-and-culture/