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Conservation groups asks commission to investigate Sonoran railway impacts

Arizona Border Crossings
Murphy Woodhouse/KJZZ
The Nogales Port of Entry in 2020.

Conservation groups are asking the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s Commission on Environmental Cooperation to investigate a railway project slated to cut through rugged wildlife terrain in Sonora.

The railway project began under former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — and was meant to increase capacity of the current rail system between the Sonoran cities of Guaymas and Nogales.

Construction began in 2023 and the line is expected to cut through Ímuris and Santa Cruz before reaching the U.S.-Mexico border. In a petition filed this week, groups including the Center for Biological Diversity say the project would fragment wildlife habitat — including a stretch of land in Sonora called the Sierra Azul-El Pinito, which serves as an important corridor for cross-border endangered species like the jaguar.

“The Mexican government is breaking its own laws with this destructive railway, and a commission investigation could ensure that vital jaguar habitat is protected,” Alejandro Olivera, senior scientist and Mexico representative at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press release about the petition. “The train line didn’t even get approval until more than a year after construction started and Sonora’s wild lands had already suffered enormous damage.”

The groups say the Commission on Environmental Cooperation is supposed to monitor and assess whether the three countries are enforcing environmental laws. They say Mexico pushed construction through without the necessary environmental permits and are calling for a formal record to be created on what they say are “Mexico’s failures” to follow protection laws.

Alisa Reznick is a senior field correspondent covering stories across southern Arizona and the borderlands for the Tucson bureau of KJZZ's Fronteras Desk.