U.S.-MEXICO BORDER PARKS TAKE BEATING

EL PINACATE BIOSPHERE RESERVE, Mexico -- Drug traffickers scar volcanic
desert with illicit runways, while law enforcement officials chase them
through once-tranquil parks. Thousands of migrants traipse across delicate
backcountry areas -- sending campers fleeing to ranger stations, fearful of
crowds trekking by their tents in the night.

Wilderness areas on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border are taking a
beating from an onslaught of migrants, drug traffickers and law enforcement
officials, a new study says. Some national treasures in both countries have
been lost forever.

Few parks have taken a greater toll than the U.N.- designated biosphere
reserve El Pinacate and Arizona's adjoining Organ Pipe Cactus National
Monument. Last year, officials caught 200,000 migrants and 700,000 pounds
of drugs in Organ Pipe alone.

Last month, Pinacate and Organ Pipe officials completed the border's first
environmental impact studies of illegal activities.

"Organ Pipe National Monument is becoming Organ Pipe National Catastrophe,"
said Randall Rasmussen, program manager of the nonprofit National Parks
Conservation Association.

On the Mexican side, migrants and drug traffic hit just as Pinacate gained
federal protection status for its 1.9 million acres in 1993.

Officials estimate smugglers drove 5,000 cars through protected wilderness
last year alone. Towering Sahuaro cacti, hundreds of years old, have been
carved by migrants with the names of Mexican villages.

People trampling prehistoric stone sleeping circles -- created 10,000 years
ago by Amerindians on their salt trail -- have eroded them away.

On a recent afternoon in Organ Pipe, discarded water bottles, backpacks,
hot sauce containers and Spanish-language comic books littered the ground
around a sprawling Ironwood tree, estimated to be 1,000 years old.

A few miles away, sitting along U.S. Highway 85, Paolo Solis and his friend
gave up and flagged down the Border Patrol after spending 12 hours walking
in 100-degree heat. They were surrounded by four nearly empty water jugs.

"We didn't know this was a national park," the 31- year-old farm worker
from Ciudad Obregon said. "We just heard this was the easiest place to
cross, but it's not. You suffer a lot."

The area's harsh conditions have taken the lives of migrants, who flooded
the region after the Border Patrol increased its presence along more
populated spots in 1993. Last year, eight bodies were found in Organ Pipe
and 14 other people passed through the park before dying in neighboring
Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.

In Pinacate, Mexican soldiers have destroyed archaeological areas --
including one with a 10,000-year-old drawing on it -- mistaking them for
illicit runways, Pinacate Park Director Carlos Castillo said.

In addition, the army has dug deep trenches to destroy 19 clandestine
airstrips -- marring hundreds of acres of volcanic desert that took 4
million years to form. The soldiers' markings could remain for another 100
years.

Both parks are home to rare animals. The cactus pygmy owl has abandoned one
of its few nesting areas in Organ Pipe since smuggling took off in the area.

The endangered Sonoran pronghorn antelope population has shrunk by 68
animals since 1993. Mexico has an estimated 346 pronghorn antelopes, while
140 remain in the United States, according to the last census.

U.S. Border Patrol traffic can disturb the animals, said Bill Wellman,
director of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

Environmentalists also fear a barbed-wire fence along the border may be
dividing the gene pool, further threatening the species already under
stress from a decade-old drought. They plan to remove the barbs from the
wire this year to allow the animals to cross.

"With all this illegal activity and the law enforcement to stop it putting
another stress on them, we may start losing more animals," Wellman said.