{"id":27115,"date":"2025-05-03T09:00:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T09:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27115"},"modified":"2025-05-03T09:26:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T09:26:25","slug":"weed-manager-of-the-year-one-mans-quest-to-save-the-sonoran-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27115","title":{"rendered":"Weed Manager of the Year: One Man\u2019s Quest to Save the Sonoran Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Don Pike takes his daily walk, he laces up his brown hiking boots, grabs his walking stick and bucket hat and heads outside. Ten feet later, he carefully slips past barbed wire and enters the Tonto National Forest. Unlike other parts of the Tonto, where the ground between native plants and trees is covered with dry grasses, the earth is pale, crusty and barren, like it\u2019s meant to be.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because Mr. Pike has been pulling weeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou won\u2019t find any of them in this area here because I\u2019ve removed them,\u201d said Mr. Pike, 84, a retiree from Maine who installed floor-to-ceiling windows in his living room to better see his beloved desert.<\/p>\n

Mr. Pike is at war with buffel grass and fountain grass, two invasive species that are <\/span>spreading in the Sonoran desert, choking native plants, increasing the risk and intensity of wildfires and threatening a vibrant ecosystem. <\/span><\/p>\n

He began hunting the thick grasses, which were introduced to the area by landscapers, <\/span>almost 15 years ago. Since then, he estimates that he and his team of volunteers have cleared 550 of the roughly 14,000 acres they oversee. In 2024, that earned him the title of Arizona\u2019s Weed Manager of the Year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Work by volunteers like Mr. Pike has always been an important supplement to managing federal lands, according to government workers who say their programs have been underfunded for years. But since the Trump administration and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency began mass firings of federal workers, volunteers like Mr. Pike have become more vital than ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be important for the federal agencies, the Forest Service in particular, to find ways to engage people,\u201d Mr. Pike said on his back porch in March. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that want to get involved. Particularly retirees who have a lot of skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

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When Don Pike takes his daily walk, he laces up his brown hiking boots, grabs his walking stick and bucket hat and heads outside. Ten feet later, he carefully slips past barbed wire and enters the Tonto National Forest. Unlike other parts of the Tonto, where the ground between native plants and trees is covered with dry grasses, the earth is pale, crusty and barren, like it\u2019s meant to be.That\u2019s because Mr. Pike has been pulling weeds.\u201cYou won\u2019t find any of them in this area here because I\u2019ve removed them,\u201d said Mr. Pike, 84, a retiree from Maine who installed floor-to-ceiling windows in his living room to better see his beloved desert.Mr. Pike is at war with buffel grass and fountain grass, two invasive species that are spreading in the Sonoran desert, choking native plants, increasing the risk and intensity of wildfires and threatening a vibrant ecosystem. He began hunting the thick grasses, which were introduced to the area by landscapers, almost 15 years ago. Since then, he estimates that he and his team of volunteers have cleared 550 of the roughly 14,000 acres they oversee. In 2024, that earned him the title of Arizona\u2019s Weed Manager of the Year.Work by volunteers like Mr. Pike has always been an important supplement to managing federal lands, according to government workers who say their programs have been underfunded for years. But since the Trump administration and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency began mass firings of federal workers, volunteers like Mr. Pike have become more vital than ever.\u201cIt\u2019s going to be important for the federal agencies, the Forest Service in particular, to find ways to engage people,\u201d Mr. Pike said on his back porch in March. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that want to get involved. Particularly retirees who have a lot of skills.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27117,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27115"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27118,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27115\/revisions\/27118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}