Saguaro National Park Border Impacts Project FY2011

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park, a designated border park, received $100,000 of funding in FY2011 to monitor and mitigate border impacts on natural and cultural resources. Saguaro National Park is located approximately 60 miles north of Mexico. Roads in and around the park have traffic in undocumented aliens (UDAs) and illegal drugs, most notably in the Tucson Mountain District (TMD) of the park. Impacts on the park resources by UDAs have not been studied or documented in an in-depth, consistent, and comprehensive way at Saguaro. Due to the limited information available about the impacts within the park, the efforts of the first year’s project were directed towards identifying, locating, and quantifying the impacts and where they occur. The findings from this year will help inform the future of this project. Several projects were identified as ways to document impacts that may occur within the park. Funds not needed (~ $6000) were returned to IMR. The projects include park boundary surveys, systematic mapping of disturbance and trash, surveillance of UDA travel routes with remotely triggered cameras, restoration of disturbed sites, including unauthorized off road vehicle travel, and condition assessments of cultural sites (archeological and historical). The following is a summary of the projects and the results.