Have you ever wondered what The West was like 300 years ago? Before the bison were slaughtered, when habitats were uneffected by humans. Filmmaker Ben Clark, says there's a place where you can go to experience that.
His new documentary coming to Paonia and Ridgway this week is built around a big idea.
What if restoration is not some far-off dream, but something already happening on the ground?
That is the question behind Preserved, a film by filmmaker Ben Clark. The documentary focuses on Vermejo, a 560-thousand-acre ranch in northern New Mexico that Clark describes as both a conservation success story and a living laboratory.
In an interview with KVNF, Clark said the land carries a long history. Like many places in the Southwest, he said, it was shaped by both natural richness and human extraction. But over the last few decades, he says scientists, biologists, government agencies, and private partners have helped turn it into something rare.
Clark says what makes Vermejo stand out is not just its size. It is also the way the land is managed. He said the ranch has the scale of a national park (it's actually as big as Canyonlands, Redwoods, and Zion National Parks, COMBINED), but operates under private conservation, which allows decisions to stay focused on habitat, wildlife, and long-term ecological health.
He says the result is a landscape that can feel almost untouched, like you might have experienced it 300 years ago.
In the film, and in his conversation with KVNF, Clark describes a place where viewers can imagine pronghorn moving through the trees, bison gathering in large herds, and predators like bears and mountain lions still present on the land.
For Clark, the project also marked a shift in his own work. After years spent making outdoor films centered on endurance sports, he said he began to feel he had not spent enough time understanding the landscapes themselves. Preserved, he says, became a way to tell a different kind of outdoor story — one rooted in science, ecology, and hope.
That sense of hope is central to the film’s message.
As one line in the film puts it: “The question isn’t why are we doing this, the question is why isn’t everyone.”
Clark says he hopes audiences walk away energized, and more aware that conservation and restoration work is already happening in communities across the country.
Preserved screens Friday night at the Paradise Theatre in Paonia and Saturday at the Sherbino in Ridgway.
