Paradise Lost?

BROWNSVILLE - The announcement this week that the federal government would waive a host of environmental protection laws for the border fence spelled almost certain closure to two nature preserves that support a growing ecotourism business in a struggling region.

``We'll have to close,'' said Anne Brown, executive director and vice president of Audubon Texas. ``Basically you've moved the border.''

The entire Sabal Palm Audubon Center and most of The Nature Conservancy's Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve would end up in the no-man's land between the fence and Mexico.

The Audubon center attracts 10,000 visitors - primarily birders - annually to its 557 acres east of Brownsville. Trails wind through more than 30 acres of rare sabal palm forest.

Between the Audubon and The Nature Conservancy's sites, as well as some neighboring National Wildlife Refuge land, the last native groves of a sabal palm forest that once blanketed thousands of acres along the banks of the Rio Grande will be ceded to the Mexican side of the fence.

Fence planners have suggested they could add an access gate for its property, but the Audubon Society has dismissed that as unworkable once the preserve is behind a steel fence.

The 1,000-acre Southmost Preserve has a large stand of the native palms and cultivates other native plants for habitat restoration projects elsewhere in the Rio Grande Valley.

Southmost Preserve Manager Max Pons lives on the site. His home would be behind the fence, raising security concerns for The Nature Conservancy.

``If I can't stay here, then I'm sure the conservancy would close the place down,'' said Pons, who started visiting the property in 1980 in college and began working for the conservancy in 2002. Someone needs to be there to monitor the pumps that draw water from the Rio Grande to the more than 400 acres that are still farmed. The tenant farmers would have to traverse the fence constantly throughout the day, moving equipment from one field to another, Pons said.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Tuesday he would bypass more than 30 environmental laws and regulations that could impede construction of the fence, designed to stop illegal immigration and smuggling.

Chertoff said the bypass was necessary to avoid unnecessary delays and litigation, but promised to be a good steward of the environment.

In addition to sensitive land in the hands of private organizations, public lands are threatened by the fence as well.

The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge is a 90,000-acre corridor assembled over decades along the river to protect one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the country. The refuge includes property neighboring the Audubon and Nature Conservancy properties.

Based on the preliminary path of the fence, between 60 percent and 75 percent of the refuge's land, which spans three riverside counties, would be directly or indirectly impacted, said Nancy Brown, public outreach specialist for the South Texas Refuge Complex.

Today, the Sabal Palm Audubon Center preserves a taste of what it was like when the trees created a thick tropical forest all along the eastern end of the Rio Grande.

``We called it the palm jungle,'' said Jimmy Paz, who played here as a boy and now runs the Audubon center.

Now he hosts birders from around the world, including former President Jimmy Carter in 2004, who flock to see species not found anywhere north of the Valley.

One might think that if a palm forest can survive this long it will do fine on its own behind the fence.

But Chris Best, state botanist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said invasive plants require constant vigilance.

Invasive grasses can take over, provide fast-burning fuel for wildfires and then quickly regenerate and expand their dominance after a fire burns away the native species, said Best, who before his currecnt job spent 16 years working to create the wildlife corridor in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

``You can't just walk away from these areas,'' Best said.

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