Photo: Alejandro Prieto / Courtesy
For: EFE
Photo: Alejandro Prieto / Courtesy
For: EFE
TUCSON, Arizona – Despite the fact that the president, Joe Biden, ordered a halt to the construction of the border wall with Mexico, environmentalists want to go further and will present a proposal to the White House on several points where they want let the fence erected by Donald Trump collapse.
On his first day in power, Biden suspended the construction of the border wall with Mexico and later rescinded the declaration of “national emergency” on the border with Mexico with which his predecessor justified the use of thousands of millions of dollars allocated to military expenses for the work.
With that money they built 450 miles (720 miles) of barrier along along the southeastern border of the country, including sites that environmental defenders classify as “critical” for the ecosystem and the communities that live in the region .
In the opinion of environmentalists, stopping the construction of the wall is not enough and the new Administration must give to try to remedy the ecological damage that has been done to the border region during the Trump administration, which with its barrier interrupted the migratory flow of endangered animals or impacted on sensitive areas.
These are five of the points on the border with Mexico where environmentalists want part of the border wall to be torn down.
The San Pedro River, as it passes through Arizona, one of the few channels in the world that flows north, travels from Mexico to Southern Arizona.
The river, in the opinion of environmentalists, is practically “caged” by a segment of border wall built along the riverbed.
Environmentalists assure that this wall affects the migration of birds and migration patterns of the animals that depend on this river, considered one of the main wildlife corridors of this region, where around 450 different species of birds inhabit or migrate throughout the year.
They also denounce that the metal barrier is a possible cause of floods in this region in rainy weather.
The border wall segment located within the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona obstructs, they claim, the migratory crossing of the Sonoran pronghorn, an animal that is in danger of extinction.
Inside the National Monument Organ Pipe Cactus in Arizona is the Quitobaquito spring, site considered as sacred to the Tohono O’odham indigenous reservation, which they usually perform in this place several of their religious ceremonies.
The spring is a source of water in the desert for the animals that inhabit the region and place where the fish known as “chitobaquito pup” lives.
Quitobaquito is on the list of the National Register of Historic Places of the United States and water was extracted from its spring during the process of construction of the wall, despite the fact that for centuries it has been a source of water for people and animals in the Arizona desert.
This region It is known for being a migration route for the jaguar, an animal that lives in the nort e of Mexico and southern Arizona.
This area is estimated to be the habitat of 450 plant species, of which 17 can only be found on this site.
Environmental defenders ensure that the wall segments built in these regions on the Texas border can cause serious flood problems by becoming an obstacle to the flow of water from the Rio Grande to Mexico, where this riverbed is known as the Rio Grande, destroying the habitat of animals.