Next Generation of Sonoran Desert Researchers (N-Gen) represents a renewed effort to create a multinational community of investigators across disciplines. N-Gen is about our collective work and implementing the ideas we generate together.
A growing sense of disconnect among fellow researchers in the same discipline, no less across an increasingly fragmented border, has made it clear that now is the time to holistically approach research and conservation in the Sonoran Desert.
This website is one method by which we can begin to find out about each other and connect our knowledge and actions. N-Gen Summits, the first held in Tucson in 2012, the second in Guaymas in 2015, and our next in April 2024 in Álamos, Sonora are wonderful gatherings that allow us to come together in person. However, N-Gen collaborations are continuous, ignited in the field with a new collaborator over a fire, born on a zoom call between Mexico City and California, or fostered at a regional N-Gen gathering.
The N-Gen network is fed by both physical and virtual interactions, and spread across the Sonoran Desert. Participate in the N-Gen projects, explore “Notes from the Field” – reports from N-Gen members of their explorations and discoveries. Learn about resources and the latest news and research in the Sonoran Desert via this website, our Facebook page, and our Twitter account. Keep an eye open for our regional N-Gen gatherings in your community. And most important, connect with those that share your interests. This is your community.
To address the research and conservation challenges of our time, a melding of worldviews and overt collaboration is needed. This community of collaborators will help bridge the barriers created by a divisive borderland reality and connect our passion and efforts to better the region we love.
Together we can shape and promote a conservation ethic that matches the grandeur of the Sonoran Desert.
Our Logo
The N-Gen logo is the symbolic depiction of the nurse tree effect. The space under desert trees, such as the palo verde shown in full spring bloom, provides a sheltered niche from the adjacent exposed desert flats. These sites are ideal for the establishment and growth of the saguaro cactus that comes of age under the protecting canopy of its nurse tree, eventually rising above. Just as the saguaro and the palo verde, the N-Gen community is fostered by the legacy of inquiry and collaboration that has come before and created conditions of success for the next generation. Designed by Rebecca Wilder, Wilder Designs Inc.
