The best New Mexico nature writing begins with Aldo Leopold — whose conservation ethic grew from his years in the New Mexico forests and whose advocacy created the Gila Wilderness — and runs through William deBuys, Stanley Crawford's acequia chronicle Mayordomo, and Edward Abbey. New Mexico's combination of mountain, desert, river, and a four-century tradition of communal water management has produced environmental writing out of all proportion to its size. This is a reader's starting map. For the collector's view, see the nature writing collecting guide; for the whole canon, Best Books Set in New Mexico.
Published June 2026 · Curated by Josh Eldred, New Mexico Literacy Project
A Sand County Almanac — Aldo Leopold
The foundational book of American conservation. Though its famous "shack" is in Wisconsin, Leopold's land ethic was forged in the Southwest, where he worked in the New Mexico and Arizona national forests from 1909. His essay "Thinking Like a Mountain" recounts killing a wolf in the Apache forest country — and it was Leopold who pushed the Forest Service to protect the Gila as the world's first designated wilderness in 1924. The single most important nature book connected to New Mexico.
Enchantment and Exploitation — William deBuys
The finest single book on a New Mexico landscape: a natural and human history of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, tracing how people have used and abused this range across centuries. deBuys's River of Traps, set in the tiny village of El Valle, is its equally essential companion. The indispensable writer of northern New Mexico's land.
Mayordomo — Stanley Crawford
A year in the life of an acequia — the communal irrigation ditch that has organized northern New Mexico village life for centuries — told by the farmer-writer who served as its mayordomo (ditch boss). The classic of water, community, and the daily labor of land in New Mexico. Pair with his A Garlic Testament.
Fire on the Mountain — Edward Abbey
Before Desert Solitaire made him famous, Abbey wrote this spare novel of a New Mexico rancher who refuses to sell his land to the government as the missile range expands around him. Abbey took his degrees at UNM, and his Southwest desert ethic — wild, ornery, elegiac — runs through all his work. The NM-rooted entry point to the great desert anarchist.
On the Mesa — John Nichols
The novelist of The Milagro Beanfield War was also a passionate naturalist and photographer of the Taos sagebrush plain. On the Mesa and his other nonfiction nature books are love letters to the high-desert ground outside his door — the everyday wild of northern New Mexico.
The wider Southwest canon
Beyond these, the broader literature of desert and wilderness is deep: the work of Barry Lopez and the full sweep documented in the nature writing collecting guide. New Mexico's land ethic — born in the Gila, refined in the acequias — remains one of the region's great gifts to American thought.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most important nature book connected to New Mexico?
Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac — its land ethic grew from Leopold's New Mexico forest years, and he created the Gila Wilderness, the first in the world (1924).
What is the best book about New Mexico's environment?
William deBuys's Enchantment and Exploitation (the Sangre de Cristos) and Stanley Crawford's Mayordomo (the acequia) are the two essentials.
What is the Gila Wilderness?
The world's first designated wilderness area, protected in southwestern New Mexico in 1924 largely through Aldo Leopold's advocacy.
Cite This Guide
Eldred, J. (June 2026). Best New Mexico Nature & Environmental Writing. New Mexico Literacy Project.
https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/best-new-mexico-nature-writing
Original curation by Josh Eldred. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.