Book trailer video
Photo by Chris Linder
The National Outdoor Book Awards has named Continental Divide: Wildlife, People, and the Border Wall, by photographer, writer, and borderlands activist Krista Schlyer, as the winner of the 2013 award for Nature and the Environment.
Customs and Border Protection spent $2.4 billion between 2006 and 2009 to complete 670 miles of border fence, and the vast majority of that was single-layer — one line of fencing designed to keep either pedestrians or vehicles from crossing into the United States, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
Photo fromU.S. NewsJune, 2013
The Border Wall
The Saguaro cactus is found only in the Sonoran Desert of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. This desert spans the border and is home to a diverse array of desert wildlife including desert bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, endangered Sonoran pronghorn, bobcats and many others. As a single ecosystem, political boundaries and the infrastructure that now defines them impose an arbitrary division of a natural system.
SaguaroChris Linder
This map, courtesy of Defenders of Wildlife, shows some of the critical wildlife corridors that are being disrupted by the construction of 670 miles of wall along the US-Mexico border.
Transboundary conservation efforts in Texas and northeastern Mexico have been helping to reconnect this landscape after a century of degradation. Wildlife is beginning to respond. Black bears, which had been extirpated from Big Bend National Park in Texas, have now returned via established corridors from Maderas del Carmen Biosphere Reserve in Mexico. All of this effort and the successes that have come from it, could not have happened had the border here been blocked by a wall. If the current policy continues, human traffic will likely shift to remote areas like this, and walls will follow close behind.
Return of the BEARSantiago Gibert
Operation Gatekeeper – Clinton Administration- launched in 1994◦ Increased border patrol presence near San Diego
and El Paso
Increased enforcement resulted in illegal crossing in remote areas of the desert in Arizona and New Mexico
The difficulty in crossing these remote areas of desert created an industry of guides or “coyotes”
The Mexican economy continued to falter after the initiation of “Operation Gatekeeper”. ◦ The migrants were desperate for work. Many of
them were farmers displaced by NAFTA.
The number of migrants jumped from 2 million in the early 1990’s to 5 million in the year 2000.
The migrant traffic was coming through some of the most pristine wildlands in the country.
The Real ID Act of 2005◦ Gave the secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) the authority to wave all laws interfering with construction of physical barriers at the borders.
The Secure Fence Act of 2006◦ Requires the construction of 700 miles of wall and
other infrastructure◦ Nullifies the:
Endangered Species Act (ESA)
Clean Air Act
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
Crafted as a response to several environmental disasters including the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill.
Congress created NEPA to ensure federal agencies understood and considered all relevant environmental information before undertaking a project.
Intent was to minimize negative impact of a project while at the same time keeping citizens informed and allowing opportunities for input.
Requires the lead agency to file an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for “each federal action significantly affecting the environment.
The EIS is a public document. NEPA has been the single most useful development in opening up federal agency decisions to local environmental groups.
In 1964, the U.S. Congress passed the Wilderness Act “to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.” Since then, Congress has designated more than 700 wilderness areas, which strictly prohibit roads and cars in order to preserve wild solitude. One of those areas, the Otay Mountain Wilderness, lies in Southern California, on the U.S.-Mexico border. In December 2008, the Department of Homeland Security began slicing through the quiet Otay mountainside with roads in order to get machinery and materials to the border for wall construction. “Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed.” —Wallace Stegner
Enduring WildRoy Toft
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has already built more than 650 miles of walls and metal fencing along the 1,950-mile border separating the United States and Mexico, and another 700 miles of wall and fencing are planned. When Congress authorized the border wall, it allowed Homeland Security to waive environmental laws near the border, and as a result, the wall has devastated wildlife migration paths. It has also rerouted human traffic through the most pristine and sensitive of wild lands, including wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, and national forests.
Map from Texas A & M University Press
Always detrimental to wild species
Added significance – climate change◦ The wall is a barrier to north-south migration when
migration may be the single most important survival strategy available to wildlife
The kit fox is one member of a diverse group of grassland species that now thrive on open range in northwestern Chihuahua in Mexico, just a dozen miles south of the border. But climates are changing and droughts becoming more frequent, a trend that is expected to worsen as the effects of global warming continue to mount. The ability to move freely, particularly northward, may determine the fate of kit fox and many other terrestrial species in the region. Walls and other barriers now being constructed by the United States may decide the fate of them all.
Photo byKrista Schlyer
Habitat loss in south Texas, one of the continent's rarest and most diverse ecosystems.
The border wall is being constructed near the Rio Grande in South Texas, Hidalgo County. Photo by Wendy Shattil. Aerial flight courtesy of LightHawk.
The Lower Rio Grande Valley, South Texas
Severing of critical migration corridors for endangered species including ocelots, jaguars, and Mexican gray wolves.
In the 1990’s there were100 Sonoran pronghorn in the wild in the United States. In 2002 the population crashed to 21 individuals. There is also a small population held in a captive breeding program on the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Arizona. There are approximately 650 pronghorn in Mexico.
The Sonoran Pronghorn
Cabeza Prietais the third largest national wildlife refuge in the lower 48 states. It has 56-mile shared border with Sonora, Mexico
Degradation of National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, and federally designated wilderness areas.
One of the remaining 12 to 20 ocelots living at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge is released after examination, blood tests, and being fitted with a transmitter collar. There are plans to create a wildlife corridor with the same subspecies in Mexico, but the border wall will prevent this. Photo by Wendy Shattil.
The Lower Rio Grande Valley, South Texas
Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge has an impressive 417 species of birds, 45 mammals, 44 kinds of reptiles, 130 butterfly and 450 plant species. It is located in deep South Texas, which is considered to be one of the most biologically diverse regions in North America.
FragmentsWendy Shattil
The creation of the Lower Rio Grande Valley wildlife corridor has been a Herculean effort of 30 years, made possible by the dedication and effort of volunteers and national wildlife refuge staff like. So little habitat is left in this ecosystem -less than 5 percent - that restoring and reconnecting what habitat remains is crucial to the future of endangered species like the ocelot and jaguarondi. But the border wall threatens to unravel all that has been accomplished in this rare ecoregion.
Green jays and similar tropical species can be found in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and nowhere else in the United States. These birds, photographed on the Audubon Sabal Palm Preserve in Brownsville, Texas, have lost 95 percent of the native habitat that once sustained them here. Wall construction is consuming more of it every day—18 feet of concrete wall is being built into the Rio Grande levee system, a levee that in some places sits a mile north of the river or more. If construction continues, much of the green jay’s remaining habitat, including this Audubon preserve, will lie south of the U.S. border wall.
American TropicsKrista Schlyer
In fall 2007, the Department of Homeland Security began constructing a wall in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, a crucial stretch of habitat for countless species, including bobcats, mountain lions, javelina and coatimundi. Conservation groups, including the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife, sued to stop construction, and won their case in a federal district court. But the Department of Homeland Security, with the stroke of a pen waived all environmental laws, dismissed the findings of the court, and continued with construction.
Above the lawTed Wood
A lawsuit temporarily halted construction of the wall that now bisects the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area in southeastern Arizona. But because the Department of Homeland Security had been given the authority by Congress to waive all laws, the temporary restraining order issued by a federal district court judge was dismissed and construction continued. Today all passage is blocked at the border for species like javelina, along with bobcats, deer, rabbits and many others.
Against the wallKrista Schlyer
Deer blocked at San Pedro wall, AZ, credit anonymous
The Pinacate: A Biosphere Reserve in Mexico
Photo by Jack Dykinga
Photo by Miguel Angel de La Cueva
A segment of the US border wall in the Barry Goldwater Range. Photo by Roy Toft.
Species like the bighorn sheep travel the entire Tinajas Altasrange, which spans the US-Mexico border. Photo by Krista Schlyer.
Cabeza Prieta Wilderness
Edge of existence
Habitat prone to drought and temperature extremes
Human disturbance, habitat degradation
Frequent trips to water holes in the Tinajas Altas mountains
Photo by Santiago Gibert
All life in the desert centers around what little water is available year-round. Watering holes like this one in the Tinajas Altas mountains of southwestern Arizona, are crucial to borderlands wildlife like bighorn sheep, Sonoran pronghorn, deer, bobcats and birds. In the past few years, construction of the U.S. border wall has placed 15 feet of steel between countless desert species and this water source.
Photos by Krista Schlyer
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
Photo by Miguel Angel de La Cueva
Photo by Miguel Angel
Photo by Kevin SchaferPhoto by Roy Toft
The NPS estimated 200,000 undocumented migrants entered Organ Pipe in 2001 compared to minimal traffic in the 1990’s.
2,269 migrantDeaths between1999 and 2012
John and Jane DoesA graveyard in Holtville, California preserves the remains of hundreds of migrants who died while trying to cross into the United States. Read more: The Great Wall of America - Photo Essays - TIMEhttp://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1814377,00.html#ixzz2rcZJaszk
Tracks in the SandVehicles abandoned by smugglers dot the landscape in the TohnoO'odham Indian Reservation in Arizona. Usually stolen from the US, the cars are left to the elements when they break down or run out of gas.Read more: The Great Wall of America - Photo Essays - TIMEhttp://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1814377,00.html#ixzz2rcYtQJ1U
Desert toad at border wall through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Photo by Carianne Sienna Funicelli Campbell
Coachwhip at Arizona's Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
Horned lizard at Arizona's Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
Photos by Carianne Sienna Funicelli Campbell
Fragmentation of some of the last remaining grasslands in North America
Janos, Mexico
A storm approaches the grasslands. Photo by Ian Shive.
Bison. Photo by Ted Wood.
Grasslands, now one of the most imperiled ecosystems in the world, once provided a home to 50 million bison, which roamed the vast plains of North America, and to prairie dog colonies that created burrow homes for countless species. These grasslands near Janos, Mexico, sit less than an hour south of the border and extend far north into New Mexico. Researchers here are working to reconnect and rebuild this remnant grassland and restore its inhabitants, but barrier construction threatens to block wildlife at the border.
Open RangeClaudio Contreras
The Janos-Hidalgo herd, found in the borderlands of New Mexico, is one of five free roaming herds of plains bison left in North America. An international consortium of scientists identified this herd as critical in the current effort to restore bison to their historical role in grassland ecology—an opportunity that exists in very few places on the continent.
The Janos-Hidalgo herd has been crossing the border for 80 years, accessing scarce water and food resources on either side of the borderline. Current barrier construction will end this passage, threaten the survival of the herd, and destroy hopes for the recovery of this keystone species in the region.
RecoveryTed Wood
ReverberationsWendy Shattil
Javelinas help form the backbone of borderlands food chains. In addition to being important prey species for carnivores, including mountain lions, jaguars and Mexican gray wolves, javelinas offer important services to the plants they eat, carrying their seeds to new locations so plants can expand their ranges and migrate when climatic conditions require. Blocking the movement of even a single species can have broad ranging impacts that reverberate through an entire ecosystem. And in the case of javelinas, which are found all along the 2000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, any wall, anywhere in the borderlands is likely to affect them.
Disruptions of the lives and livelihoods of borderlands residents by blocking access to the Rio Grande River
Landowner Wendy Glenn. The Malpai Group of conservation ranchers are vehemently opposed to the border wall. Photo by Ted Wood.
The Rio Grande River defines the U.S.-Mexico border from El Paso to Brownsville, Texas, where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The river corridor supports rare creatures like the ocelot and jaguarondi, as well as some of the oldest communities in the United States. Residents who acquired their homesteads through Spanish land grants 10 generations ago still call this land home. Border wall construction plans will require seizure of some of this land by the federal government. The wall will separate residents from large portions of their property, and from the river that drew them here in the first place.
Rio GrandeIan Shive
HeritageTed Wood
The grasslands of the Southwest are home to an enduring ranching culture. Because there were no requirements to meaningfully consult with local people during wall construction, the insights and concerns of people who live on this land were largely ignored. Roads, walls and increased border patrol activity have eroded the quiet nature of the borderlands. And many have witnessed first-hand the ineffectiveness of walls as immigration policy. Most have seen people climbing over, through, or around barriers, and have noted that all the new roads border patrol has built to ease its travel, provide the same convenience for smugglers.
For many property owners on both sides of the border it comes down to this statement, made by wildlife biologist Rurik List: “the walls and fences and other obstacles the United States is building are ultimately not just separating the United States from Mexico, they are dividing a continent.”
Near the edge of the Pacific Ocean, with Tijuana on one side and San Diego on the other, lies a place called Friendship Park. The park was designated in the 1970s as an international meeting ground—a place where friends and families living on opposite sides of the border could meet and share a picnic, and where musicians came to entertain them. First Lady Pat Nixon, who attended the dedication, spoke these words: “I hate to see a fence anywhere.” Friendship Park has in the past year been declared off limits to the public, and what was a low wire fence in Nixon’s time, has become a 15 foot steel wall.
Friendship ParkKrista Schlyer
San Diego, California
John Fanestil greets Mexican citizens through the wall for a Sunday religious service. Photo by Krista Schlyer.
A boy plays in the surf in the shadow of the wall. Photo by Kevin Schafer.
Video: Does the Wall Work?
Video: World Record Climb of US – Mexico Border Wall Shatters Two Girls
Video on Border Wall
In January 2009, the International League of Conservation Photographers sent a team of world-renowned photographers, with writers, filmmakers and scientists to the borderlands of the United States and Mexico to document the wildlife, ecology, and effect of immigration and the border wall on this landscape. The 17-member team spent almost a month traveling the nearly-2000-mile border and captured more than 10,000 images of the region and the impact of the wall. Since then, the images have been used in media outreach and in an exhibit that has been shown in the halls of Congress and around the country. The purpose of the project is to raise awareness of the peril that border infrastructure places on the long-term survival of myriad species that live in the borderlands. This area is a shared conservation treasure of international importance that harbors some of the most biodiverse landscapes on the continent. Many species here are found nowhere else in the US, and nowhere else in Mexico and some are found nowhere else on Earth.
More on Cornell Lab of Ornithology: birds.cornell.eduLearn More about the iLCP Borderlands RAVE : http://www.ilcp.com/projects/borderlands-raveMore on the iLCP: ilcp.com/
2009
The majority of the imagesIn this presentation came from this website:www.enviro-pic.org
Click here for the slide show.
