Project

Losing Ground: The Environmental and Economic Impacts of Trump’s Border Wall

President Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” along the US-Mexico border aims to keep out undocumented border crossers, but the new barrier will also keep in wildlife species that need to migrate back and forth and bisect rare habitats. In South Texas, where most of the recently authorized wall segments are going up, these new walls and patrol roads are slicing through one of the most biologically diverse areas on the continent—the Lower Rio Grande Valley—and scientists, conservationists, and local officials worry about how they’ll affect the environment and ecotourism in this economically depressed region.