边境墙威胁着国家野生动物保护区

边境墙威胁着国家野生动物保护区

Over the past 41 years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been buying up land on the lower Texas-Mexico border to protect one of the most biologically diverse regions in North America from developers and farmers.

在过去的41年里，美国鱼类和野生动物管理局一直在购买德克萨斯和墨西哥边境的土地，以保护北美最具生物多样性的地区之一不受开发商和农民的破坏。

But the Rio Grande Valley of Texas is a hotspot for illegal immigration and drug smuggling, as well as biodiversity. That's why the Trump administration is planning to build 110 miles of border wall through the valley (which is actually a river delta).

但德克萨斯州的格兰德河谷是非法移民和毒品走私以及生物多样性的热点。这就是为什么特朗普政府计划修建穿过山谷的110英里长的边境墙 (实际上是一个河流三角洲)。

Pieces of that wall will go directly through the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge because it is land already owned by the federal government. Elsewhere on the Texas border, construction of the president's wall is being slowed by difficulties acquiring private land. It can take months or years to take private property through eminent domain.

一部分墙将直接穿过下里奥格兰德山谷国家野生动物保护区，因为它已经是联邦政府拥有的土地。在得克萨斯州边境的其他地方，由于难以获得私人土地，总统墙的建设正在放缓。通过征用权夺取私有财产可能需要几个月或几年的时间。

"It's a tragic situation," said Caroline Brouwer, vice president for government affairs at the National Wildlife Refuge Association, a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates for the nation's often overlooked refuge system. "Fish and Wildlife staff have worked on this issue for decades and decades. And it's being torn down in front of our eyes."

“这是一个悲惨的情况，”美国国家野生动物保护区协会(National Wildlife Refuge Association)负责政府事务的副总裁卡罗琳·布劳威尔说。该协会是一家总部位于华盛顿的非营利组织，为美国经常被忽视的保护区辩护。“鱼类和野生动物的工作人员在这个问题上已经工作了几十年了。现在这个问题正在我们眼前被推倒。”

Back in 1979. the idea was to save a strip of native habitat along the Rio Grande, known as Tamaulipan thornscrub in the rapidly urbanizing valley. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began to buy up pieces of land .

早在1979年，这个想法就是为了拯救格兰德河沿岸的一片原生栖息地，也就是快速城市化的山谷中被称为塔毛利潘荆棘灌木丛的狭长地带。美国鱼类和野生动物服务局开始购买整块土地。

Today, the agency owns 135 individual tracts comprising nearly 105.000 acres, stretching along the last 275 river miles from Falcón Dam to the Gulf of Mexico. Fish & Wildlife has spent about $82 million and the refuge network is still growing. Under congressional authorization, the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge will ultimately have 132.500 acres.

今天，该机构拥有135块单独的土地，占地近10.5万英亩，沿着从法尔孔大坝延伸到墨西哥湾的最后275英里的河流。鱼类和野生动物已经花费了大约8200万美元，保护网络仍在不断扩大。根据国会的授权，下里奥格兰德山谷国家野生动物保护区最终将拥有132.500英亩土地。

It did take time for some folks in the area to embrace the concept.

该地区的一些人确实花了一些时间来接受这个概念。

"When they first started buying up land I was very upset, didn't believe it could work, didn't want the federal government to be my neighbor," says Tony Zavaleta, a retired anthropologist with the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. From the deck of his rustic cabin, Zavaleta has watched a rare mountain lion prowl his property. Now he's a believer.

德克萨斯大学里奥格兰德河谷的退休人类学家托尼·扎瓦莱塔说：“当他们第一次开始购买土地时，我非常沮丧，不相信这能奏效，不想让联邦政府成为我的邻居。”在他乡村小屋的甲板上，扎瓦莱塔看到了一只罕见的美洲狮在他的土地上徘徊。现在他是个信徒了。

"Forty years ago, there were no white-tailed deer anywhere near here. You had to go north or south to find white-tailed deer," Zavaleta says. "Today, the white-tailed deer are all over the place. And so it's been a huge success."

“四十年前，这里附近没有白尾鹿。你不得不向北或向南寻找白尾鹿，” 扎瓦莱塔说。“今天，白尾鹿到处都是。所以这是一个巨大的成功。”

The border wall may impact 8.839 acres of native habitat on 30 separate tracts of its land. Wildlife conservationists are wondering how much of an obstruction the barrier will be to animals that range along the river.

边境墙可能会影响到30块土地上8839英亩的原生栖息地。野生动物保护主义者想知道这道屏障会给沿河活动的动物造成多大的阻碍。

Betty Perez runs a family ranch north of the town of La Joya and is past president of the Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, a private group adamantly opposed to the border wall.

贝蒂·佩雷斯在拉乔亚镇以北经营着一个家庭牧场，她是野生动物走廊之友的前主席，这是一个坚决反对边境墙的私人组织。

"The Fish and Wildlife land is what's been targeted first because it's easy. It's the first thing you can get to without having to worry about the process of buying land from people," she says, pausing while rolling out a round hay bale for her mama cows.

她停顿了一下，一边为她的母牛铺开了一个圆形的干草包，一边说：“鱼类和野生动植物的土地是最先被瞄准的，因为它很容易。这是你第一件不用担心从人们手中买地的事情。”

Perez helps sustain the wildlife refuges by raising native plants such as yucca, catclaw acacia and wolfberry that she sells to Fish and Wildlife. The agency uses the plants to revegetate farmland and turn it back into natural terrain.

佩雷斯通过种植丝兰、卡爪金合欢和枸杞等本土植物来帮助维持野生动物保护区，她将这些植物出售给鱼类和野生动物保护组织。该机构利用这些植物重新种植农田，并将其恢复为自然地形。