Border Fence and the Endangered Species – Part 7

To understand how these changes affect our society, Jared Diamond studied several ancient societies in Collapse and examined why some societies failed but some succeeded. Using a 5-point framework (environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trading partners and society’s response to environmental problems), Diamond analyzed the economic, social, political and environmental factors that contributed to a societal collapse.

Based on his study, those collapses “were at least partly triggered by ecological problems: people inadvertently destroying the environmental resources of which their societies depended”. He called this unintended ecological suicide “ecocide”. There are eight categories of ecocide for past societies, and he added four new ones for modern societies.

Among the twelve threats to our society, habitat destruction is ranked one of the top. Although land alteration was essential to the survival of our ancestors, it was also the main reason for collapse of some societies that Diamond studied. In our modern society, we have modified our physical environment in numerous ways, including building massive structure, and in this case – a border fence.

Balancing national security and habitat protection is a complicated issue. The proposed fence most likely will not stop illegal immigrants from crossing the border, but surely will pose devastating threats to wildlife. Besides costing millions of tax dollar, a non-functional border fence gives a false sense of security to those who believe in tightening border security.

This fence definitely falls into Diamond’s category of habitat destruction. As we learned from Collapse, some severe destruction to the environment brought the end to some societies while other significant disruptions are still impacting the daily lives of the inhabitants. Most of these changes were done due to ignorance or blindly focusing on short-term benefits.

With the knowledge of the damages that could be caused by the border fence, will the new administration be smarter in negating the changes that could cause irreversible environmental damages? Is there a way to maintain a “green corridors” for animals while setting up necessary barriers to stop illegal immigration? More fundamentally, can we tackle the core causes of illegal immigration?

In Diamond’s 5-points analysis, hostile neighbors are threats to social stability whereas the lost of friendly partners is equally fatal, so, who are these illegal immigrants? Are they friends or enemies? What role do they play in agricultural and other industries as well as in the U.S. economy as a whole? Will the U.S. agricultural sector collapse without the labor provided by illegal immigrants?

In additional, as discussed earlier about the technical problems with the “virtual fence” in Tucson, using a technological fix for a social problem does not seem to work effectively. If the U.S. policy makers can figure out the values of the illegal immigrants and the appropriate relationship with them, reforming of the U.S. immigration policy should be able to leverage the benefits offered from the south of the border.

Given that science can prove that the fence will decimate the endangered species as well as their habitats, there is a strong incentive to use the precautionary principle, and rethink the societal value of this fence. Immigration policy reform, in my opinion, is a more viable solution rather than building a financially and environmentally costly but worthless fence.