Ribbons of Green Book Event at the Guild Cinema
October 8, 2026 - Sairis Perez-Gomez
On September 25th we celebrated John Fleck's newest book Ribbons of Green: The Rio Grande and the Making of Modern Albuquerque at the historic Guild Cinema. Although it was our first time hosting an event at the Guild, it certainly won't be our last! John gave an engaging talk as he explained the cast of characters in his book who were all real-life local legends, heroes, activists, farmers, politicians, and more. John explained how they shaped the wetlands and Rio Grande of their day, into the river and Albuquerque we know today.
Ribbons of Green is available to purchase here at UNM Press.
More on the Ribbons of Green from UNM Press.
The first combined social and ecological look at how institutions in New Mexico intentionally built the Rio Grande Valley through the heart of Albuquerque to create “natural” corridors of green spaces in a modern American city.
Dry one year, overflowing the next, the Rio Grande has sustained its arid valley for millennia. In Ribbons of Green, John Fleck and Robert P. Berrens seek to understand twenty-first-century Albuquerque’s relationship with the Rio Grande by exploring the social and ecological interactions that describe how this high-desert city developed astride a capricious river. In every phase of the Duke City’s history, living with the Rio Grande posed problems that required collective action by its stakeholders to irrigate, build river crossings, drain the valley’s floor, and protect residents from flooding.
These collective decisions ultimately changed the course of the river, resulting in intentionally designed “ribbons of green” that dominate today’s cityscape. The Rio Grande in turn altered the collective psyche of Albuquerque. For many residents, the city’s bosque is their only interaction with nature, but these green corridors are very much a human creation. Ribbons of Green explores how Albuquerque built its environment to create a valley floor that its residents have come to adore and how, in a climate-altered world, we might keep it.
Photos from the Event!
