CONSERVATION STRATEGY : Ecological Security on the Border
A Day of Reckoning for Wildlife Linkages Between the United States and Mexico
by Kim Vacariu

Miles of fencing, solid steel walls up to 15 feet high, all-night stadium lighting, multiple-layered vehicle barriers, an immense network of newly bladed roads, a 24-hour flow of patrol vehicles (including ATVs), constant low-level aircraft overflighters, and foot patrols--all designed to curtail human travel--are also combining to create the ultimate barrier to wildlife movement in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.

One of the greatest challenges now facing conservationists is finding a means to protect cross-border wildlife linkages in this globally signifcant ecological region. The magnitude of the fragmentation threat facing this international habitat (which bridges the mountain ranges of northern Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental with those of the Sky Islands on the U.S. side of the border) is difficult to imagine and even more difficult to address.

The fact of the matter is that connections between the Sky Islands and the Sierra Madre may well be the most endangered wildlife linkages on the continent. The current effort by the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Border Patrol to seal off the border as quickly as possible to protect against an increasing flood of undocumented immigrants is the primary force behind this unfortunate distinction.

If existing and proposed security infrastructure is maintained and built-out as planned, there can be no wildlife-friendly crossing structures, no conservation-easement-protected open space corridors, no effective habitat mitigation plans, and no consideration for federally listed species. In short, these usually reliable conservation tools are being rendered useless by the overriding federal goal of stemming the flow of undocumented immigrants into the U.S.

Building such an unforgiving barricade through the heart of the Sky Islands-Sierra Madre region is painfully ironic. The Wildlands Project, the Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund have each published independent conservation plans and maps for the region that come to similar conclusions: for sheer breadth of biodiversity there are few other places in North America that even come close.

The Wildlands Project's collaborative effort to define a healthy conservation future for the region--the Sky Islands Wildlands Network (SIWN) Conservation Plan--places strong importance on the preservation of wildlife linkages between protected areas to ensure that regional species, like jaguar, black bear, ocelot, Mexican gray wolf, cougar, pronghorn, and others, can continue to inhabit and move through their traditional habitat and range.

Although the SIWN design area terminates at the U.S. border, the plan's wildlife linkages are intended to seamlessly mesh with corresponding linkages in the proposed Sierra Madre Occidental Wildlands Network in northern Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico. This vision for cross-border merging of conservation plans presumes that neither can reach its potential unless wildlife linkages allowing focal species movement between the ranges of the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Sky Islands are maintained. Due to the threat that border infrastructure now poses to large-scale conservation planning and survival of native wildlife, the Wildlands Project last year identified the Sky Islands borderlands as one of five wildlife linkages most at risk of being lost along the chain of the Rocky Mountains from Canada to Mexico.

Disruption of wildlife movement between northern Mexico and Sky Islands habitat in the U.S. presents serious survival challenges to jaguar, ocelot, black-footed ferret, southwest willow flycatcher--all federally listed as endangered species--and other regional species that are in decline. Cross-border wildlife linkages with a high potential for use by these fast-disappearing species include the following: the Peloncillo Mountains' El Berrendo region; the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge's Sierra San Luis corridor; the San Pedro River corridor; the San Rafael Valley's Sierra San Antonio region; and relatively undisturbed Mexican habitats connecting to Coronado National Memorial, the Patagonia Mountains, the Pajarita Wilderness Area, and the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Some of these linkages continue to remain highly intact, largely roadless landscapes, yet they lie directly in the path of ongoing or proposed border security projects. Many other linkages are already fully barricaded or fenced.

For a glimpse of the immediacy with which protection of these linkages must be addressed, look no further than the border security projects being proposed. In October of 2004, the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection released a second version of a previously withdrawn Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (DPEIS) for a massive borderlands security infrastructure project across southern Arizona. Through various means (including up to 150 miles of 15-foot-high solid steel walls, 1,000 stadium-style all-night lighting installations, up to 100 miles of additional fencing and other barriers, and the building of dual 10-foot-wide roads along the entire border) that project would impact virtually all of the agency's 280-mile Tucson Sector border in southern Arizona.

Review of this DPEIS makes it clear that ecological concerns related to construction of security infrastructure are not a priority for the Border Patrol. The DPEIS, with a public comment deadline of January 29, 2005, provides little documentation of negative environmental impacts, and ignores specific effects of infrastructure development on critical cross-border wildlife linkages.

Previous to release of the DPEIS, the agency has been avoiding the EIS process completely through the use of Environmental Assessments (EA) covering much smaller project areas, most of which duplicate individual components found in the original DPEIS, withdrawn due to thousands of critical public comments regarding lack of ecological information. Some of these EAs, which require less rigorous justification than EISs, have moved rapidly through review, and projects are now being implemented with little or no public comment.

This fast-track approach concerns many conservationists. According to Jenny Neeley, Southwest Associate for Defenders of Wildlife in Tucson, "The agency has become increasingly unaccountable for its actions. Despite the undeniable adverse environmental impacts of its projects, the Border Patrol has systematically failed to comply with fundamental environmental protections, including those outlined in the National Environmental Policy Act, Wilderness Act, National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and National Park Service Organic Act. The limited environmental analysis that has been conducted has occurred only on a piecemeal, rather than a comprehensive, basis. As a result, the full extent of the Border Patrol's ecological impacts along the U.S.-Mexico border has never been revealed to the public."

At the same time, evidence that border security infrastructure can disrupt wildlife movements and threatens species survival is building. Researchers and scientists are finding specific linkages and identifying species that are at risk from Border Patrol activities.

The Northern Jaguar Project (NJP), an organization working to conserve the northernmost viable population of jaguars just south of the Arizona border in Sonora, Mexico, is using photographs and sign of several jaguars that researchers and hunters in southern Arizona have collected over the past few years to help document the dispersal range of the Sonora population. Based on this evidence, NJP's Rick Williams believes protecting cross-border linkages is essential, "if the jaguar is ever going to re-colonize any of its former range in the United States." Williams worries about the effects of Border Patrol activities on the endangered cats. "Fencing, high-intensity lighting, and high-speed patrol traffic along the border would be devastating to the jaguar's movements north," he says.

Further evidence of the need for protecting borderlands linkages is presented by ethnozoologist Steve Pavlik, who studies black bear in southern Arizona. His recently published paper, "Ursus in a Sky Island Range: The Ecology, History and Management of Black Bears in the Huachuca Mountains", indicates that bears often travel between the U.S. and Mexico. "Bears are believed to have historically used the San Pedro River as a riparian corridor to travel safely to mountain ranges south in Mexico", writes Pavlik, who also points out that black bears will travel long distances to search for food, particularly during drought conditions. Pavlik notes that a female black bear euthanized in Patagonia, Arizona, in 2000 had an ear tag of Mexican origin, providing more evidence of cross-border movement.

The U.S.-Mexico border may also present a challenge in the conservation and management of the Chiricahua leopard frog. According to Trevor Hare, a conservation biologist with the Sky Island Alliance currently studying frog populations in Arizona's San Rafael Valley just north of the U.S. border, security infrastructure is "probably impacting frog conservation and management--by interfering in dispersal of frogs and disruption of their meta-population structures." Hare notes that although frog populations exist on both sides of the border, there is evidence that the southern population is "doing much better." This could be related to a number of habitat disturbances, he says, including Border Patrol activities.

Perhaps the most telling indication that ecological concerns relating to Border Patrol construction projects are valid comes from a surprising source. A soon-to-be-published paper prepared by Border Action Network (a Tucson-based human rights, civil liberties, and environmental protection advocacy group focused on Arizona-Mexico border issues) quotes the Bush administration's Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, often reluctant to voice environmental concerns, as stating, "I'm troubled by the whole concept of having to put a fence at the border, especially when you're talking about something that could impact wildlife being able to migrate in their usual patterns."

Unfortunately, mounting evidence of negative impacts to wildlife linkages along the borderlands continues to go unheeded by the agencies. Neither the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (BCBP) nor other public or private entities have completed conclusive scientific research into the effects of border infrastructure on native plant or animal communities in the Sky Islands region. Nevertheless, in response to the federal government's decision to quickly complete border security projects, the BCBP continues to implement new infrastructure and policy through the use of EAs, and more recently through internal administrative orders from the Department of Homeland Security.

The Border Patrol's "Arizona Border Control" (ABC) initiative, quietly implemented without public review only a few weeks after it was announced in early 2004 by the BCBP, provides one example of how these fast-track projects will likely move forward. The ABC initiative grants the Border Patrol immunity to a number of existing environmental restrictions in protected Sky Islands habitat areas, including the Pajarita and Miller Peak Wilderness Areas, the Baker Canyon, Bunk Robinson, and Whitmire Canyon Wilderness Study Areas, and the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. The relaxed restrictions would allow the Border Patrol increased off-road vehicle pursuit of undocumented immigrants on trails within those protected areas--activities that can further fragment key wildlife corridors and could also lead to further dissolution of Wilderness Act regulations if left unchallenged.

Quickly and easily constructed "vehicle barriers" have become the Border Patrol's tool of choice in roadless terrain, with installation often occurring at the rate of SEVERAL miles per week. The Border Patrol promotes these barriers (consisting of vertical beams, posts, or rail segments connected horizontally by a second continuous rail, with horizontal strands of barbed wire above and below that rail) as wildlife-friendly simply because they are not solid walls. Vehicle barrier construction also requires construction of access roads alongside the barriers, and often leaves pre-existing secondary barbed-wire fencing in place, creating a double barrier. New roads can often fragment a wildlife linkage, with an estimated 2,000 Border Patrol agents driving hundreds of patrol vehicles along more than 1,000 miles of such roads around the clock. This alone could end cross-border movement for sensitive species, such as the jaguar and the ocelot.

The number of high-rise, all-night, stadium-style and portable generator lighting installations along the border, many up to 1,000 watts, continues to increase. Although conclusive studies on the effects of all-night artificial lighting on bird, reptile, fish, and other animal behavior are not yet available, biologists believe that such illumination causes unnatural nocturnal activity for migrating birds, including disrupted rest cycles, collisions with light poles, and increased predation activity by a variety of other species.

Photo © Susan C. Morse

Considering the BCBP's expedited approach, short public comment deadlines on proposed projects, and the attendant consequences for wildlife habitat, conservationists are faced with a fast-closing window of opportunity in which to scientifically document the threats to borderlands ecosystems posed by security infrastructure. Without this information, much-needed construction guidelines and recommendations for incorporation of wildlife-friendly alternatives in border security projects cannot be easily produced.

Research recommendations
If threats to cross-border habitat connectivity are to be properly mitigated, new research must be conducted and existing science documenting the environmental effects of proposed border security projects must be developed. In March of 2005, the Wildlands Project will sponsor a "Border Ecological Symposium" to identify existing science, launch new research efforts in areas where data is lacking, and create a set of ecological guidelines for future security infrastructure projects.

Research efforts could include:

• Impacts of fencing, walls, and other barriers on the movements and behavior of wide-ranging species.
• Locations of key cross-border routes currently used by various wildlife species.
• Potential increases in distribution of invasive plant species spread through the blading of previously undisturbed natural areas, and through vehicle transport.
• Environmental impacts and anticipated legal problems relating to proposed security infrastructure and operations within national conservation areas, national monuments, national parks, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas.
• Effects on plants, animals, and fire regimes due to increased access by recreationists and hunters using newly constructed border roads.
• Impacts of all-night stadium lighting near watercourses, water bodies, and riparian areas on predation of fish and other aquatic species.
• Impacts of all-night stadium lighting on bird migration.
• Impacts of noise from equipment, regular vehicular traffic, and aircraft overflights on sensitive animal species.
• Effects of immigrant travel, such as trash, water hole encampments, and human waste, on habitat quality and focal species.
• Impacts of increased off-road motorized access by Border Patrol in federal protected areas on plants and wildlife, and associated legal precedents leading to further reduction of environmental regulations.

Socio-political recommendations
The challenge of maintaining undamaged wildlife linkages along the U.S.-Mexico border is particularly vexing because the long-term solution to borderlands fragmentation depends as much on socio-economics and international politics as on the science of conservation biology. There is little, if any, disagreement among conservationists that border security must be maintained. However, there is widespread disagreement over the best means by which to maintain that security. Add to this mix the new challenge of protecting cross-border wildlife movement, and the debate grows.

Prevention of illegal immigration through means other than construction of barricades could be achieved over a relatively reasonable period of time through earnest, creative immigration reform and economic cooperation between the

U.S. and Mexico. However, the juggernaut of terrorism could easily dictate that even if immigration-related problems were largely eliminated through international diplomacy or new immigration reform legislation, political pressure to maintain a physical barrier will likely remain. Considering the extent of current security infrastructure and the rapid pace of new barricade construction, conservationists should logically assume that successful immigration policy reform, if ever enacted, may not occur in time to offer a respite for cross-border wildlife.

The situation dictates that reforming immigration policies alone cannot be counted on to halt wildlife linkage fragmentation. Rather, focus and action must be immediately placed on a more urgent list of wildlife protection options:

• Work to legally uphold the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Wilderness Act of 1964, the Endangered Species Act, the Refuge Improvement Act of 1997, and the Clean Water Act, and oppose suspension of such laws in the borderlands region.
  
• Submit public comments whenever new environmental assessments or impact statements for border security projects are released by the BCBP, Border Patrol, or Department of Homeland Security.
  
• Encourage expanded use of technology that could help secure the border without additional fencing, including unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic ground sensor systems, remote video cameras, and surveillance aircraft operating at reasonable altitudes.
  
• Advocate strong protection from off-road travel and construction activities in existing roadless areas along the U.S.-Mexico border, including wilderness areas, national monuments, national parks, national wildlife refuges, and other protected conservation lands.
  
• Promote wilderness designation or other strict administrative protections for existing roadless areas contiguous with the border.
  
• Document the effects on wide-ranging wildlife of border security infrastructure occurring within or across international wildlife linkages.
  
• Legally challenge border security activities and policies that violate existing federal and state environmental laws.
  
• Determine the scientific compatibility of various fencing structures with wildlife permeability.
  
• Advocate for vehicle barriers that do not include cross-fencing with barbed wire or horizontal rails, and for elimination of solid barriers wherever practicable.
  
• Support the U.S. Border Patrol, BCBP, and Department of Homeland Security whenever these agencies incorporate wildlife-friendly components in border security construction projects, or refrain from blocking existing wildlife linkages with new infrastructure.
  
• Support new immigration reform policies that result in the majority of immigration occurring legally through established ports of entry.

Kim Vacariu is the Wildlands Project's Southwest Representative in Tucson, Arizona. He works with a broad range of agencies, conservation groups, and citizens to implement the Sky Islands Wildlands

Network Conservation Plan in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico. His current efforts focus on protecting wildlife linkages in the Sky Islands region.

SOURCES
Dinerstein, Eric, et al., eds. 2000. Ecoregion-Based Conservation in the Chihuahuan Desert: A Biological Assessment. Washington, D.C. A collaborative effort of World Wildlife Fund, CONABIO, The Nature Conservancy, PRONATURA Noreste, and ITESM. Available online at www.worldwildlife.org.

Fatal Light Awareness Program. 2004. Nocturnal Effects. Available online at www.flap.org/new/nestegg.htm.

Foreman, Dave, et al. 2000. Sky Islands Wildlands Network Conservation Plan. Tucson, AZ: Wildlands Project.

Immigration and Naturalization Service. 2002. Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for U.S. Border Patrol Areas of the Tucson and Yuma Sectors, Arizona. Washington, D.C.

Jones, Bryn and Sahee Kil. 2004. Environmental Protection on the Line: The Untold Environmental Impacts of Arizona/Mexico Border Enforcement. Tucson, AZ. Available from Border Action Network: jallen@borderac-tion.org.

Marshall, R.M., et al. 2004. An Ecological Analysis of Conservation Priorities in the Apache Highlands Ecoregion. Prepared by the Nature Conservancy of Arizona, agency, and institutional partners.

Pavlik, Steve. 2004. Ursus in a Sky Island Range: The Ecology, History and Management of Black Bears in the Huachuca Mountains. Tucson, AZ. Available from the author: spavlik@gci-net.com.

Soulé, Michael E. and John Terborgh, eds. 1999. Continental Conservation: Scientific Foundations of Regional Reserve Networks. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

Wildlands Project. 2003. Room to Roam: Saving Wildlife Linkages Along the Spine of the Continent. Available online at www.wildlandsproject.org/roomtoroam/ and at Wildlands Project Southwest Field Office, Tucson, AZ, kim@wildlandsproject.org.