JACME, Mexico — Near the towering border wall flanked by U.S. Border Patrol vehicles, botanist Sula Vanderplank heard quail chirping in the scrub. This is the sound a bird makes to signal its departure from its mates or flock. .
Then silence.
When the quail on the Mexican side called back, the soundtrack alternated between being both fitting and heartbreaking for an ecosystem separated by man-made barriers.
Vanderplank was one of several botanists and citizen scientists who participated in the border bioblitz near the Mexican community of Jacume, about 90 miles east of Tijuana.
Approximately 1,000 volunteers equipped with the iNaturalist app on their smartphones are recording as many species as possible along the U.S.-Mexico border in May.
Uploading photos to the app will help you identify plants and animals and record their location coordinates.
It is hoped that this information could lead to further protection of the area’s natural riches, which have been overshadowed by news of drug trafficking and migrant smuggling.
On a recent day, Bioblitz volunteers scrutinized a carpet of bright yellow blooming in the goldfields. This is in sharp contrast to the imposing steel pillars of the border wall, topped with rolls of razor wire.
Some ducked past piles of empty water jugs, gray parkas, and empty tuna cans left under the branches of native plants like the Tecate cypress.
“There’s an incredible amount of biodiversity here that has traditionally been overlooked,” said Vanderplank of the bilateral program Baja Rea.
The effort comes after former President Donald Trump added hundreds of miles of border wall, toppling countless saguaro cacti in Arizona and passing through Baja California, a biodiversity hotspot. It started.
“When we started building the border wall, we realized how little hard data we had, especially when it came to plants and small organisms,” Vanderplank said. “We don’t know what we could potentially lose.”
Since then, efforts to document the flora and fauna of borderlands have proliferated as climate change due to habitat loss, pollution and development takes a toll on the world’s biodiversity.
One 2019 estimate warned that one million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction within the next few decades, with the rate of loss 1,000 times higher than expected.
The United Nations has announced a commitment by signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity to protect 30% of land, freshwater and oceans considered important for biodiversity by 2030 (known as “30 by 30”). A level meeting is scheduled to be held in Colombia in October.
Representatives from around 200 countries are expected to present plans on how to meet agreed conservation targets for 2022.
Currently, 17% of terrestrial areas and 10% of marine areas are protected.
The Baja California Peninsula, located on the border with California and home to Tijuana, which has Mexico’s highest murder rate, is home to more than 4,000 species of plants.
A quarter of these are endemic, and at least 400 plant species are considered rare plants with little protection.
Plants and animals that are extinct or endangered in the United States, such as the California red-legged frog, are thriving south of the border, producing specimens that are used to restore populations.
But crime in the region deters many U.S. scientists from crossing the border. Scientists say Mexico also restricts permits for botanists and does not allow seed collection, further curtailing research.
Bioblitz organizers say they are working with local communities and will only take people to areas they feel are safe.
“You have to be really careful because there’s some violence,” said John Rebman, curator of botany at the San Diego Museum of Natural History, adding that 33 new plants in the Southern California and Baja California regions will be targeted for science. named.
“It’s scary from that perspective, but there’s very little protected area in the south, so it’s an area that really needs more information,” he said.
Rebman used the museum’s collection to create a list of 15 plants that are endemic to Baja California and have not been seen since they were collected about a century ago. He formed a binational team to find them. He has discovered 11 cases so far.
Rebman also discovered two new plants in a canyon off the Tijuana highway in 2021 that became the subject of scientific research. A new species of Astragalus tijuanensis and a new species of Astragalus brauntonii named lativexillum.
“We were worried that it would go extinct even before we had a name for it,” Rebman said. “If you look at that, you can see what kind of field we are operating in.”
Mariana Fernández, a botanist with Tijuana-based Expediciones Botánicas, checks the plants regularly.
She is working with Rebman to push Baja California to increase protections for native plants. Currently, only a small number are on Mexico’s federal protected list.
While she hopes the state will intervene, she is also trying to drum up support by taking Tijuana residents and Baja officials on hikes.
“People are amazed that these things exist in Tijuana, and we want more people to see that beauty because we need it,” Fernandez said. Ta. “It’s important not to be hindered by human-created barriers.”
As record levels of natural disasters, violence and war around the world increase the number of people displaced and tighten border security, more migrants are flowing into areas such as those near Jacumet.
This small community of about 100 families includes members of the Kumeyaay tribe and is located across the border from the similarly sparsely populated desert near the California town of Jacumba Hot Springs. Population: Approximately 1,000 people.
Thousands of asylum seekers have been seen in the region waiting for an opportunity to cross, usually under cover of darkness, then re-camping on the American side after turning themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol agents.
Fernandez was one of the botanists who helped BioBlitz volunteers on the Mexican side near the crumbling crossing since the 1920s.
“I never expected there to be so much biodiversity within our borders,” said Joselyn Reyes, a student of Fernandez’s at the Autonomous University of Baja California. He stopped every few feet and lingered on the plants, photographing their details. “It’s very interesting and makes you realize there are a lot of things worth saving.”
