Environmentalists from Mexico and the USA defend animal life affected by border wall

A photographer from Agence France Press (AFP) traveled to a remote point on the border between the American state of Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora. In this desert area, Edmon Harrity, from the Sky Island Alliance, places a modern camera on the trunk of a tree to collect data on animal movements.

“These lands are not empty. They are full of wildlife and diversity. Building a huge human barrier has repercussions”, warns the activist, when accompanying AFP on a hike through the Patagonia Mountains, in Arizona.

In the area where Harrity works, an intricate fence prevents vehicles from passing through, but most animals can get through it.

In contrast, specimens from other areas, also captured by the camera, suddenly stop in their tracks and appear confused in the face of insurmountable obstacles.

José Manuel Pérez, from the environmental organization Cuenca de los Ojos, highlights that one of the species most affected by these barriers is the jaguar. He also remembers the difficulties of some wild boar families, who depend on water in the United States.

With these examples, environmentalists seek to demonstrate the need to keep the border free of walls, the impact of which, more than reducing clandestine migration, is on wildlife.

“This part of the border is one of the most important points in North America (…) you have all kinds of animals and birds crossing,” describes Valer Clark, a New Yorker who has lived in Arizona for 40 years and is part of the Cuenca de los Ojos.

Close surveillance at the dividing line even hinders the crossing of migratory birds. At night, they get lost when they are dazzled by bright lights, environmentalists explain.

Pérez also laments that, at least on the border, Mexican authorities seem absent.

“We are concerned about the silence on the part of the Mexican government, which does nothing to try to mitigate the effects of the ecocide that is happening with the construction of this wall”, denounces Pérez.

The United States began erecting barriers in 1994 in an attempt to prevent illegal migration across the nearly 3.200-mile border with Mexico.

(To AFP)

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