(Photo by Will Stone - KJZZ)

The Sonoran Institute is hoping to designate public land around the Barry Goldwater Range for conservation and the benefit of the military.

(Photo by Will Stone - KJZZ)

Ian Dowdy of the Sonoran Institute taking in an aerial view of public land in western Maricopa County that's valuable habit and maintains a buffer zone for the Barry M Goldwater Range.

(Photo by Will Stone - KJZZ)

The military manages millions of acres across the Southwest, much of which ends up being home to endangered and threatened species. Conservation groups are trying to expand the protected habitat around military installations.

A bombing range may seem like the last place to find pockets of undisturbed ecosystems. But take a flight around the Barry M. Goldwater Range, west of Phoenix, and you’d be hard pressed to find scorched earth. 

“It’s one of the best places for habitat for Sonoran desert species,” said Ian Dowdy, who is riding in the passenger seat of a small prop airplane. 

Below, the valley stretches across wrinkled mountains into farmland, finally giving way to a succession of subdivisions.

Dowdy is a supporter of how the United States military manages the 1.7 million acres of prime desert habitat between Tucson and Yuma.

“They only operate and impact about five percent of this entire ground," Dowdy said. "But the rest of it remains wild and open and available for wildlife and for conservation of resources.”

The military manages about 30 million acres of land across the country. That can be a problem when much of that represents critical habitat for rare species, but conservation groups see this as an opportunity. 

That link — between the environment and military — is what Dowdy’s organization, the Sonoran Institute, hopes to leverage. It’s spearheading a plan that would restrict development on pieces of public land around the range, mostly by designating them as federal conservation areas.

Dowdy said if you compare the flight corridors for jets with those used by wildlife on the ground "the lines are very similar."

"We see a mutual benefit between protecting the landscape under the military overflight areas and protecting the landscape for wildlife to connect from one place to another,” Dowdy said. 

In a place of rapid growth like Arizona, the danger is that development springs up around military installations, eventually hampering training operations. That isn't just a national security issue, it’s an economic one. The military generates about $9 billion a year for Arizona’s economy.

“The more acres you have, the more flexibility you have to change your mission," said Fred Pease, a retired Air Force official who oversaw the management of ranges throughout the U.S.

About 400 threatened and endangered species are found on Department of Defense land — from the Okaloosa Darter, a fish found on Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, to the Western Snowy Plover, a bird that nests in Southern California at Camp Pendleton.

The reason, Pease said, is that wildlife take refuge in the best remaining habitat, which can often be DOD land. This dynamic has even lead Pease to once ask: “At what point does this thing become a wildlife refuge and no longer adequate for training and readiness?”

Maintaining open habitat around bases and ranges, he said, eases that burden, which can also end up impeding training.

Pease also points to the ongoing recovery of the Sonoran Pronghorn. After coming close to extinction, the animal has begun to rebound, in part because of the military’s work preserving habitat on the range.

“Conservation folks are realizing that, ‘hey, some of these military lands are really great, but we shouldn’t put all the pressure on them,'" Pease said.

Pease said he supports the Sonoran Institute’s more moderated approach — partnering with the military community and not pushing only extreme forms of conservation.

But in an era when public land is an increasingly contentious issue in the West, the proposed legislation behind this plan, the Arizona Sonoran Desert Heritage Act, faces an uphill battle. Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona recently reintroduced the legislation, after first sponsoring it in 2013. 

One of those critical of this proposal is Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, who represents much of western Arizona and his district borders the range.

Gosar said the legislation will see substantial pushback, "the reason being is the federal government can’t take care of its own lands.”

Arizona's Republican Senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, expressed similar reluctance about any future conservation designations.

The Air Force will not take a stance on the proposal, but said in a statement: "In general, initiatives and actions that prevent or minimize incompatible development with the installation's operational footprint are deemed favorable to the long-term sustainment of our mission."

Gosar said there are already tools for managing environmental issues on military land, and he won’t support any new regulatory hurdles, which could impact mining and other economic interests.

The Sikes Act allows for cooperation between the DOD and various federal agencies, like the Department of the Interior, to manage wildlife and natural resources on withdrawn military land. It does not, however, apply to land around military installations, which is the land targeted by Grijalva's legislation.

“There’s not going to be any new designations, other than, maybe presidential, and then they’ll get a fight on it," Gosar said.

Gosar is referring to a national monument designation, which has become increasingly controversial. About half a million acres on the range was set aside in 2001 by President Bill Clinton and became the Sonoran Desert National Monument. 

Dowdy said he understands the difficulty of moving legislation in the current political climate, especially when it involves so many stakeholders. But he also argues the plan is tailored to each area and draws upon a variety of conservation tools.  

As we fly next to the bombing range, he points to a piece of "unprotected habitat" between the Estrella Mountains and the Sonoran Desert National Monument, where a freeway is slated to go.

“What we tried to do is put together a plan that would allow something like a freeway to pass through here, as intensive as that is from a development perspective, while maintaining the wildlife connectivity.”

That isn't the case for all the land. Some would be wilderness and allow for very little human activity, save fighter jets flying overhead.

For Dowdy, these are the trade-offs that make up a realistic conservation plan in a place like Arizona.

Whether that message will resonate in Congress is still up in the air.