U.S. border ecologies, environmental criticism, and transnational american studies

In June 2010, top Republican members of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee sponsored a bill that would exempt the Border Patrol from environmental regulations protecting public lands along the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada. A significant percentage of U.S. border areas are made up of public lands and waterways. Lands administered by the Department of Interior (DOI) cover over 700 miles or nearly half the U.S.-Mexico border area and almost 600 miles or 10% of the U.S.-Canada boundary (“Marijuana and Methamphetamine Trafficking” n. pag.).1 The National Forest Service supervises an additional 24 million acres within fifty miles of the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada. The 5,000-mile U.S.-Canada boundary runs through several wilderness areas, twelve national parks, and four Indian reserves. The 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border traverses national parks, reservation lands, wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, and other environmentally sensitive areas. Like the United States, the governments of Canada and Mexico have imbued boundary land with environmental significance by placing it under national or provincial/municipal stewardship. In combination with reserves in the municipality of Sonora, Mexico, for example, public Arizona borderlands form one of the largest networks of protected areas in North America (Flesch et al. 172).