An urban dweller ventures to far West Texas with a dream to transform a barren desert into a lush forest
FRAMED BY THE VASTNESS of the Chihuahuan Desert, a lone man faces the camera. All around him, rough hills roll off into the distance. Clouds trail across an enormous sky, and mountain peaks decorate the horizon. “My name is Shaun Overton,” he says. He grins, then points to the barren ground at his feet. “And I’m turning this into a desert forest.”
Growing trees in this unforgiving terrain is a promise Overton makes every time he introduces a new episode of Dustups. The video series documents his attempt at “turning 320 acres of wasteland into a desert forest in the most isolated spot in Texas.”
Overton’s so-called wasteland, Dustups Ranch, is situated in the foothills of the Eagle Mountains about 42 miles southeast of Sierra Blanca, the tiny seat of Hudspeth County. The narrow Rio Grande snakes through the desert about 5.5 miles to his south. It’s hard to say whether Overton’s spread is truly the most isolated road-accessible spot in all of Texas, and it will take years, if not decades, to judge the success or failure of his project. But his quixotic vision for transforming the all-buttreeless property has stirred imaginations around the globe.
Videos of Overton digging dirt, stacking rocks, running a bulldozer, and performing other chores—either working alone or in tandem with up to half a dozen volunteers—have racked up millions of views on TikTok and YouTube since the first Dustups video was posted the day after Christmas in 2022. It hardly seems to matter that Overton doesn’t even pretend to know what he’s doing.
“I think it’s pretty clear from the videos that I’m just figuring it out as I go and have the time and resources,” Overton tells me.
As climate change
