Border wall construction in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is a travesty [View all]
Border-wall construction is starting within Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a national park unit, in Arizona this week. Workers will use machinery to rip saguaro roots out of the sandy soil, pinching and twisting the thick cactus skin.
They’ll tear apart creosote bush, coating their clothes in the unmistakable smell of petrichor — razing hundreds of years of botanical mastery. A mere five minutes will decimate this unique example of a species’ astonishing evolutionary ability to thrive in the Sonoran Desert.
Members of the Tohono O’odam Nation harvest saguaro fruit and perform their sacred salt ceremony in and around Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. But the monument will still get two new miles of border wall in August and September. In October, it will gain dozens more, as will the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge that sits to the west. The construction will also slice through the San Pedro Riparian Conservation Area. The border wall here is likely to function as a dam, potentially clotting the last free-flowing river in Arizona. All these lands contain indescribable richness, both in biodiversity and in Indigenous culture and ceremony.
Meanwhile, with the flood of Pentagon funds, approved a mere three weeks ago by the Supreme Court, the Rio Grande Valley and the Butterfly Center in Texas could once again be targeted by attempts by the Trump administration to erect the wall.
Read more: https://www.hcn.org/articles/opinion-borderlands-border-wall-construction-in-organ-pipe-cactus-national-monument-is-a-travesty
(High Country News)
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