I have written about this in the past, but this last week there was an article in the guardian newspaper. In it it talks about this region of Arizona, and it’s “sky Islands” upper reaches of mountains that are left undisturbed, allowing wildlife to thrive.
This is a fascinating region of the world, as it is the only natural place where grizzlies and wolves from North America, meet with ocelots and jaguars-more commonly seen in the dense rainforest of the Amazon.
If all of trump’s contracts for wall building are completed, they will cut off 93% of the jaguars territory.
This cannot be completed by hand over, however pressure is being me to make as much progress as possible. The wall all is currently being put up at about a mile a day.
It should also be noted that in many places the wall passes through areas specifically set aside as wildlife refuges.
It is insane, in a so-called democracy, that Trump has been able to do this despite Congress blocking appropriations for its building.
A number of American groups have been working hard to recover the ecological niche that the sky Islands give, but all of this will be ruined.
It should be noted that this wall of Trump’s breaks more than 30 laws.these include the endangered species act and the national environmental protection plan.However because Trump is behind it these have been waived to allow the building to take place.
While the wall is made of slats,and the ocelots may well be able to continue to cross between the two countries, the majority of wildlife will not and therefore both fragmented populations will become far more liable to localised extinction.
We can only hope that once Joe Biden has taken office, he reverses some of these perverse and stupid decisions. Apart from anything, given the ease that has been demonstrated about how easy it is to get through or over this barrier, the only thing the barrier is going to do is to destroy this ecosystem. It is perhaps fitting that one of the last moves of Donald Trump as president will be something pointless, unlikely necessary for his successor to undo.
