This Land is Your Land

The West is a border area and it carries key issues about how we use the land and its resources. This hard land has been crossed by pioneers, outlaws, soldiers, gold diggers, water diviners, cowboys, native americans, sects and religious movements.

Across these 3700 miles in California, Nevada and Arizona, you can still see the legacy of the two rivaling American ideas about how we should use the land. The common good, that benefits all and includes vast protected areas, and the private good, owned by the few for the few.

This areas are inhospitable due to climatic and geographic conditions, poor in resources, deeply anthropized into big urban sprawls. Las Vegas was built on one of the hottest and driest grounds of the planet, using the energy of the massive Hoover Dam.

This land is your land, sang Woody Guthrie. And land management needs to be done democratically. Today more than ever, especially in diffucult areas such as the Western states, where resources are scarce because of climate change.

Water, dust, burnt land, drought, fires, big spaces, tamed rivers, artificial lakes, waterworks, overbuilt and ever expanding cities, deep social conflicts are the key topics of this work.