The U.S. Air Force is proposing intense, increased low-level fighter jet maneuvers & supersonic flights above rural & tribal communities in Ariz & New Mexico & some of the Southwest’s most fragile sky-island ecosystems. The Tohono O'odham Nation, the San Carlos Apache and the... ...White Mountain Apache would be forced to bear the brunt of the impacts which could include the increased risk of hypertension, stroke and heart attacks from supersonic flight noise. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

On Thursday I went to the Republican-only House Natural Resources Committee hearing on border issues they put on in Sierra Vista, Ariz. and boy was that a dark, ugly, stupid dog-and-pony show.

The thing got rolling with a bizarro rant by Fed Lands Subcommittee Chair Tiffany…🧵 …(R-Wisc.) accusing the American Red Cross and Catholic Charities of participating in the greatest human trafficking operation since slavery because they provide blankets to cold migrants. Humanitarian aid obviously isn’t a crime. Tiffany then thanked Shawn Wilson for…

Hudbay, the Canadian mining company pushing to mine the Santa Rita Mountains near Tucson, Ariz has a notorious history of human rights violations & environmental contamination. The company hired Peruvian National Police, who subsequently beat & teargassed villagers ...

...opposed to its Constancia Copper Mine. Hudbay’s security chief at a Guatemalan nickel mine pleaded guilty to murdering an indigenous leader opposed to the mine. Hudbay’s copper smelter in Flin Flon, Manitoba, poisoned the land & left elevated levels of lead in the blood ...

Canadian mining company Faraday Copper is engaged in a drill program in a beautiful riparian & saguaro forested section of Arizona's Galiuro Mountains. Their Copper Creek Mine between the San Pedro River in Mammoth, Ariz & the Aravaipa Wilderness would be massive and.../1 ... could impact threatened and endangered species like Southwestern willow flycatchers, loach minnows, spike dace and yellow-billed cuckoos. According to Faraday Copper the project is a whopping 40 square miles.

This weekend the town of Superior, AZ held its annual Apache Leap Days festival. The event is named after the cliff in the distance. Its called Apache Leap because during an 1870's battle between the tribe & the U.S. Cavalry, a group of Apache warriors were driven to the edge… …of the steep cliff by U.S. troops & the Apache chose to leap to their deaths rather than surrender. Another story, & market, exists here too: the volcanic glass obsidian at Apache Leap represent Apache tears. Kids at the festival pan for Apache Tears. Tourists by the tears.

AshBritt continues to illegally damage Forest Service lands with new spur roads & damages to plants/wildlife during wall removal. The FS gave me a permit to document removal but earlier this week revoked it while I was in the field. A FS Ranger told me I was illegally on site... ...while around him AshBritt contractors drove their vehicles in the forest, creating illegal paths. I watched as an unathorized AshBritt security guard alerted the ranger to my presence. While the ranger could have cited the guard for violating FS regulations he chose to...

They don’t call the Sonoran Desert the wettest desert on earth for nothing. Damn near tropical this summer. A thread …

Today @CenterForBioDiv filed a notice of intent to sue EPA for allowing decades-long failure to limit pollution in Queen Creek. Resolution Copper’s proposed mine would discharge copper & other pollutants into the creek. The mine would destroy Oak Flat. tinyurl.com/QCreek Pollution limits are an important Clean Water Act tool to improve water quality. In 2002 the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality said Queen Creek failed to meet federal water-quality standards because of dissolved copper; later it added lead and selenium to the list.

A coyote rolls with a lumbering black bear through a forest in Florida.

📽️ Michael Kacos Other similar examples of seemingly unlikely pairs:

https://twitter.com/PeccaryNotPig/status/1225480274001063936?s=20

#Bernie photoshops from the inauguration that will steal your heart. A thread...

A drone tour of 7 ecologically important areas being destroyed by Trump’s #borderwall in Ariz.

These are wildlife refuges, national park land, endangered species habitat, wilderness & biodiversity hotspots.

1) Buenos Aries National Wildlife Refuge

2) Tinajas Altas Mountains

Trump’s wall has expanded across Organ Pipe Cactus Nat. Monument quickly in recent months. It’s closing in on sacred Quitobaquito Spring. Yesterday, O’odham activists, elders & others circled the spring for songs & prayers and promises to protect this sacred site. The water level is extremely low at Quitobaquito Spring. Construction crews are pumping millions of gallons of precious desert water onsite for construction of Trump’s border wall. Compounded by drought, things feel very dire. Songs for monsoon rains were sung.

How can Trump ram a wall through wildlife refuges, indigenous cultural sites and federally designated endangered species habitat? Simple: he waived these 41 laws:

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act

The Endangered Species Act /1

The American Indian Religious Freedom Act

The National Environmental Policy Act

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act)

The National Historic Preservation Act

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act

The Migratory Bird Conservation Act /2

Yesterday I went out to the headwaters of the Yaqui River, to the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Arizona to check on border wall construction & wildlife corridors & jaguar critical habitat. I was shocked to see the entire valley is almost walled off. /1 The wall is heading straight for Guadalupe Canyon seen here. This canyon connects the Peloncillos in Arizona to the Sierra Pan Duro and San Luis in northern Mexico which make a straight line to the northern most breeding population further south in Sonora, Mexico. /2

This is the top of "Monument Hill," a sacred site to multiple tribes, that @DHSgov is dynamiting right now to build the #borderwall. It's part of the historic homeland of the O'odham. Apache are buried here. Trump waived the Native American Graves Protection Act to allow this. @DHSgov I hiked up Monument Hill several months ago with @LaikenJordahl to get a lay of the land before actual construction had started. From here you see the vast wild UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve that is Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Now it's being destroyed.

These are 41 laws that Trump has waived for the construction of his new border wall:

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act

The American Indian Religious Freedom Act

The Endangered Species Act /1 The National Environmental Policy Act

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act)

The National Historic Preservation Act

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act

The Migratory Bird Conservation Act

The Clean Air Act /2