In Arizona, 22 federally recognized tribes inhabit nearly every region of the state, according to the Arizona State Museum, but the Hia-Ced isn’t one of them. But some descendants of those four surviving families are working to change that. They’re researching the history of the Hia-Ced to prove their existence and distinctions and working to advocate for recognition with the federal government.

I ask all Arizonans to join me in contacting your members of Congress, our two U.S. senators, and the governor. Ask them to stand strong against this attack on our public lands and to keep these important land and cultural and natural resource protections in place. Say no to carving up these national monuments for the profit of a few short-term special interests.

Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday aimed at forcing the federal government to protect Arizona’s diminishing cactus ferruginous pygmy owl population under the Endangered Species Act.

Federal officials are boosting efforts at national parks in southern Arizona to prevent what they say is a path of destruction left by illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico.

Immigration officials this year flew fewer than 9,000 Mexican nationals home, the lowest number in the eight years of a voluntary government repatriation program.

A draft plan on the solar potential of federal land identifies three Arizona sites encompassing nearly 14,000 acres as highly suitable for energy development.

A dwindling Saguaro National Park in the Sonoran Desert outside Tucson suffocated by an invasive grass. Baren prairies where pine forests once thrived near Flagstaff. The Colorado River run dry, leading to desalinated ocean water as drinking water for the state. These are just a few of the possibilities that experts offered for how Arizona’s forests, deserts and major metropolitan areas might look at the end of the century given generally accepted rates of global warming.

The Center for Biological Diversity is suing to reinstate protections for bald eagles in Arizona.

An increase in smuggling violence at the Sonoran Desert National Monument about 80 miles south of Phoenix has prompted a stronger warning to visitors about drug and immigrant traffickers passing through the public lands, officials said Tuesday.