UNESCO — the UN body responsible for world heritage sites — is renewing calls to the U.S. and Mexico to assess damage done by the border wall to a special Sonoran Desert site.
El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar is a dormant volcano with striking lava flows and desert flats on one side, and white sand dunes on the other.
The site’s vibrant landscape and species biodiversity earned it a spot on UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 2013. It’s also listed as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. But the agency says it’s long been imperiled by the 30-foot steel bollard wall built by the Trump administration across hundreds of miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
During a UNESCO meeting in India this week, committee members called on the U.S. and Mexico to assess and mitigate the damage the wall — and the lights installed alongside it — have caused to ecological connectivity and the site’s integrity as a whole.
